No More Than a Means
by Queen of the Castle
Summary: Harry/Sirius. Harry Potter finds that fate isn't quite done messing around with his life yet.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Written for the HP Fairytales challenge for the prompt "Prince Ivan and the Grey Wolf", and thus contains elements of the plot of that fairytale. Written pre-DH, so not canon-compliant. However, (as you'll see), it goes AU in some ways long before that anyway. Also, Harry is 17 years old when the sexual content takes place.

* * *

**CHAPTER ONE**

Harry Potter raised the cup to the Headmaster's mouth, flinching along with Dumbledore as the older man swallowed, the poison almost automatically beginning on its path through his veins.

To be honest, Harry wasn't quite sure how he'd ended up in a position where he had to unwillingly poison the man that he was trying to help. When Dumbledore had told him the dangers of what they were doing, Harry had never expected anything like this. Imminent peril to his own life, Harry could deal with. Having to betray the only real mentor he'd ever known more and more with each lift of the cup and each placating word was something else all together.

When the Headmaster finally (thankfully) had finished, he barely even had enough of his wits left about him to grab the locket and clutch it to him as he begged for water.

How ironic did it seem, that with what seemed like miles of water surrounding them, Harry couldn't even manage to procure a single gobletful to quench a wounded – and perhaps dying – man's thirst.

Dumbledore had warned him zealously against disturbing that vast expanse of water, but there was nothing else for it.

He didn't even have time to turn about and give Dumbledore that mouthful of water before he was assailed by bodies. Inferi, his mind supplied, though perhaps that knowledge would have been a little more useful had Harry been able to recall anything about defending against them apart from the decidedly unhelpful litany of 'light and warmth' that was running through his brain. As it was, Harry was stuck vainly waving his Lumos-lit wand at them, shouting curses that seemed to have no effect on them at all.

He was so screwed. They both were.

Harry hadn't, since Dumbledore had first told him about the prophecy, really considered the possibility that he might actually be taken out of the equation long before he ever got to face down Voldemort. Didn't he feel like an idiot now?

It was a stroke of luck – whether bad or good luck, Harry wasn't yet certain – that someone else was in the cave. The unidentified person called out a string of words, which Harry unfortunately couldn't quite make out, that stopped the Inferi. They didn't quite fall away from their holds on him. They just… stopped. There was no more pulling of his body towards the water, where they presumably had intended to drown him, if Inferi could 'intend' anything at all. They seemed to, in an instant, truly become corpses once again. Harry wasn't certain whether they looked more unnerving when they were moving about as if alive, or when they just drifted like that, eyes glazed and unseeing.

Harry had seen dead bodies before. He just hadn't ever seen quite so many at once. He shuddered and tried to shake grasping but limp hands away from him. His skin crawled at the touch of their slightly slimy fingers.

"I see that you have managed to get yourself in too deep once again, Mr Potter."

Damn. Harry knew that voice.

This might well be worse than if the Inferi had been allowed to have their way with him after all.

Harry pushed the immobile bodies away from him with a shiver and whipped his wand around to point in the direction of the Death Eater's voice, somewhere across the other side of the water, though he couldn't see him in the darkness. However, even as he repeatedly shot off hexes, disarming spells, _anything_, they each ineffectually hit what looked like a particularly strong shielding charm that didn't look as if it would let up any time soon.

Here was yet another foe that Harry didn't quite know how to fight. He was unfortunately getting fairly used to that.

There was nothing for it. Harry lowered his wand, and the Death Eater thankfully didn't take the opportunity to curse him. Instead, he only used his own wand to create light enough for Harry to see him properly, even across the distance.

Harry glared at Lucius Malfoy, though the other man just smirked right back at him. Neither said anything, as if unwilling to end their silent stand-off in favour of actually just getting on with it. A small gasping sound from his over his left shoulder reminded Harry that Dumbledore's pressing need for half a dozen well trained Healers, and _soon_, meant that there was no time for posing and mind games.

"Last I heard, you were in Azkaban," Harry called out across the lake.

Lucius shrugged gracefully, as if unaffected by the mention of what Harry knew must have been the worst experience in his life, bar none. "I was," Lucius conceded. "The Dark Lord released me so that I could be here. Had the wizarding world not traded one incompetent and frightened Minister of Magic for another, it might have actually made the papers. We'll all be so much better off when my Lord appoints someone more worthy to the position, don't you think?"

Harry pointedly chose not to respond to his baiting. "So why _are_ you here?"

Malfoy's smirk only seemed to deepen. "Isn't it obvious? I'm here because I've been waiting for you to arrive."

"Huh?" Harry said.

It wasn't an awe-inspiring come-back, if he was honest.

"You took rather a bit longer than I expected, too," Malfoy continued regardless. "I admit to being a little disappointed. The Dark Lord dropped the location of this place to Dumbledore through his spy _days_ ago. We expected he would come as soon as he knew. But, I suppose, he had to prepare his will and wait for a time he could bring you along, since he knew this little excursion of yours would finish him off. Not a moment too soon, I must say."

"No," Harry objected, though he found that his voice was not as strong in its denial as he would have liked. Lucius's words merely echoed his own thoughts, after all. Even Harry could tell that Dumbledore was dying, as much as he tried to hope and believe otherwise.

"No?" Lucius responded with a disbelieving chuckle. "Are you really so idiotic as to not have figured out why your beloved Headmaster was suddenly telling you about a mission that he had kept completely quiet up to this point? He knew he was going to die, and that you would have to carry on without him. And now it's you who have helped him on his way. Bravo, Potter. My Lord will be pleased to congratulate you for your efforts personally, I'm sure."

"No!" Harry said again, and was happy to note that he sounded much more vehement this time.

"Yes, I'm afraid so," Lucius contradicted, though for all that his tone was adequately mournful to suit his words, his face was far too obviously gleeful. Harry growled at him, though he wasn't sure that Malfoy could hear the low sound across the body of water that separated them, echoing though the cave may have been.

"It was for nothing, of course. The locket that fool Dumbledore is cleaving to so tightly is useless to you, as it's not the original. It is a cheap imitation of Slytherin's former possession, and it was left there many years ago to be found by the Dark Lord, as a taunt of sorts, by a former servant named Black. It's not one of his Horcruxes at all. And yes," Lucius added, seeing the flicker of surprise on Harry's face, "the Dark Lord is well aware that you know about all of that. You forget that the Dark Lord can enter your weak mind whenever he pleases. That's why he knew that you would escort Dumbledore here, and why he prepared for exactly that eventuality."

Harry was silent, not willing to admit that he didn't really understand the full impact of what Malfoy was telling him.

"The Dark Lord is _not_ the fool you seem to think he is," Lucius continued. "When he returned, he knew that there was a possibility that some of his Horcruxes may have been found during his absence. This Horcrux – the true Horcrux, at least – was found to be missing. After some searching, the Dark Lord has concluded that it is in a place protected from his and all of his follower's entrance. However, he believes that _you_ may have the means to go inside, find his item and return it to him."

"And, what? He thinks that I actually _will_?" Harry asked with false bravado, though with entirely real incredulity. "Having his more particularly insane time of the month at the moment, is he?"

"Watch it, boy," Lucius snapped, his eyes narrowing. "The Dark Lord would prefer that you remain alive for the moment, but he didn't specify you had to remain _whole_, so hold that tongue of yours before I use a well-earned slicing charm on it. If you refuse to comply, I'll either immediately kill you – and believe me, I'd be only too thrilled to comply – or we continue with this… _enlightening_ chat until either you have to watch your Headmaster die from lack of medical aid right in front of you, or I just kill you both to end the sheer boredom of it all."

"And what happens if I do go along with it?" Harry scoffed. "You're going to play nursemaid for him while I'm off on your little quest, are you? Somehow I can't see you as the fluffing the pillows behind his head type."

Lucius shrugged. "It's more than you could expect, or deserve, to have my word that he won't be killed by myself or any other Death Eater, but you'll have it nonetheless. If he does die while we're waiting for your return, it will be from that poison that _you_ shoved down his throat."

"Your word?" Harry repeated incredulously. "You expect me to trust the word of a Slytherin? A Death Eater? A _Malfoy_?"

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, looking every inch the epitome of high-class pureblood dignity. "I certainly do when my word comes in the form of an Unbreakable Vow," Malfoy said condescendingly. "I, as the Dark Lord's devoted servant, must be willing to lay my own life on the line for his cause. Would you do the same for your precious Headmaster?"

Harry's first instinct was to immediately reply indignantly that of course he was, but for once he held his tongue. He knew just enough about Unbreakable Vows to be wary, especially as Lucius Malfoy was involved.

"Well?" Lucius prompted.

"What if I agreed?" Harry asked carefully.

Lucius smirked, obviously knowing that Harry was going to cave. "Bellatrix, won't you come over here?" he called out.

Harry could only gape as Bellatrix Lestrange entered the cave, her mad eyes gleaming in the light of the Lumos charm beaming out of her stolen wand. The hand not holding her wand was dripping blood, which she didn't even seem to notice as she approached Lucius's side. It took Harry a moment to realise that, like Dumbledore, she'd obviously had to shed blood to enter the cave. He would have thought, though, that even an insane person wouldn't leave the wound to bleed, thus further weakening herself. Perhaps it was a show of self-confidence. More likely, it was just thoughtless. She didn't exactly seem like the brightest beam of light, after all.

"Not her," Harry breathed.

Other than obviously Voldemort himself, Harry couldn't claim to hate anyone in the wizarding world quite as much as he despised Bellatrix Lestrange. Ever since she'd escaped from Azkaban prison after Cornelius Fudge had panicked over the Death Eaters appearing at the Quidditch World Cup, resulting in the order for her and several other key Death Eaters to receive the Dementor's Kiss, she'd played a key part ruining his life little by little. Had it not been for Bellatrix, Barty Crouch Jr would never have escaped his father's control, and would never have been able to infiltrate Hogwarts. Harry wouldn't have been transported to the graveyard that had housed the Dark Lord's return. The Dark Lord wouldn't have returned, period, because he wouldn't have had anyone to assist him.

And then, of course, Tonks wouldn't have died were it not for Bellatrix. Harry had liked Tonks quite a bit; she was almost like an older sister, in a way, and had become probably the closest thing Harry had to family outside the Weasleys themselves when he'd stayed at their house in the summer before his fifth year, with Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt as their guard. Tonks had gone above and beyond the call of duty. It had been Tonks who had shocked him out of his 'teen angst phase', as she'd teasingly called it, though Harry knew that she hadn't really begrudged him his anger and sullenness under the circumstances.

That had all ended when, that February, barely half a year after he had first met her, Tonks and a few other Aurors had been sent out to a location where Bellatrix had been sighted to capture her. Only one of the Aurors had emerged from the fight alive, though not unscathed. It hadn't been Harry's newfound confidant.

If there hadn't been a substantial distance and a large lake between them, Harry fancied that he might have bodily lunged at Bellatrix. The wave of rage that swept over him just at the sight of her was almost overpowering. As it was, Harry summoned forth a glower that, had he been able to see himself, he might have deemed a rival to even those that Snape generally reserved just for him.

"What trouble has the baby gotten into, now?" she cooed at him.

"The kind of trouble where I make you wish it'd been the Dementors that finished you off instead," Harry threatened.

Lucius smirked. "Now really, Potter, you ought to show better manners. Bellatrix, after all, is only here to help. I'd volunteer Dumbledore to be our Bonder instead to appease your sensibilities, such as they are, but he appears to be nearly unconscious. Bellatrix is our only option."

Harry had to clench his jaw shut tight enough that it ached, but somehow he managed to stop himself from protesting further.

"Now," Lucius continued, "I think that you should take that boat you travelled across in and return over to this side of the lake. No!" he snapped immediately when Harry moved to collect the Headmaster, who was still gasping in short, laboured breaths, so that he could help him to the boat. "You'll leave him exactly where he is."

Harry intensified his glare, if that was possible, but did as Lucius said. After all, it was the two Death Eaters who held all the cards. Harry would have to endeavour not to forget that. Getting himself killed right here and now would obviously do neither himself nor Dumbledore an ounce of good. At least if he played by their rules for now there might be some kind of _chance_ of getting out of this.

The crossing of the water seemed to take, at once, forever and a mere second. When Harry stepped out onto the narrow bank, he kept a reasonable distance between himself and where Lucius and Bellatrix stood side-by-side.

"If I agree," Harry began grudgingly, "then will I at least be told where I'm meant to be going?"

Lucius laughed a full-bodied sort of laugh that indicated real amusement. "Of course not! The Dark Lord, while he wants the locket back in his possession, is in no rush for you to return. You'll have to rely on your own intelligence. That should be interesting, I believe, as Severus has left us with the impression that your 'intelligence' is in particularly short supply."

Harry wanted to react to the familiar way Lucius spoke of Snape, and the fact that Snape had obviously been spending his time sharing stories about _Harry_ instead of retrieving much-needed information for the Order. However, cursing Snape to a painful death in his imagination would have to wait for a more appropriate time, presuming that Harry actually lived to see one of those.

He scoffed, "Right," and approached Lucius and Bellatrix, careful not to lose his balance on the small outcrop so that he would fall into the water. Who knew whether the Inferi would remain static if disturbed again.

"So, Potter, this is how it works. You and I will join hands, and Bellatrix shall place her wand atop them to bind us to our words. I will ask, under the Vow, whether you agree to your part of the terms and you will reply, "I will." You will then state your terms, and I will agree. And then you will leave, and go about your task. If you refuse to do so, you will die. It's really very simple.

"Now, Bellatrix, if you please?"

Lucius gestured towards the floor, addressing Harry. "You will need to kneel, Potter."

Harry's breath caught. "You want me to kneel down in front of _you_? Are you mad?" he choked out.

Malfoy rolled his cold eyes. "Don't be overly dramatic, Potter. I will be kneeling as well." As if to demonstrate this point, Lucius went to his knees.

It felt oddly satisfying, actually, to have the high and mighty Lucius Malfoy at his feet like that for a moment before Harry followed Lucius's lead. Harry had to concentrate very hard on not either flinching away or lashing out when Bellatrix came to stand over them. She seemed to find it difficult to stand alongside them on the thin band of rocks, and Harry found himself hoping that _she_ would fall into the water. This, unluckily, was not the case, and so Harry was not treated to the incredibly satisfying sight of Bellatrix Lestrange being torn apart or drowned by Inferi. He felt supremely disappointed, and then wondered what that said about his sense of mercy. Nothing good, obviously. When it came to her, though, he wasn't sure that he cared.

Lucius extended his hand and looked imperiously at Harry, fully expecting him to accept it without qualm.

"I'm not stupid," Harry said, ignoring the hand for the moment. "I won't be Bonded to go Horcrux-hunting before you're already Bonded into not hurting Dumbledore. You go first, or we're not doing this."

"Fine," Lucius said, exasperated. "Now, could we proceed before the Headmaster expires and the deal becomes worthless?"

Harry eyed him warily, but took Lucius's hand nevertheless.

"It needs to spoken formally," Lucius informed him as Bellatrix's wand settled over their joined hands. "'Will you, Lucius Malfoy, do this' and the like. And don't try to throw in any extra bits and pieces, since I'm under no obligation to agree."

Harry nodded curtly. He needed to phrase this properly, so that there was no way that Lucius could find a way around his words without actually breaking the Vow.

"Will you, Lucius Malfoy, swear on behalf of yourself and all others in affiliation with Voldemort or his followers that Albus Dumbledore will not be handled in any way that causes further harm to him?"

"Put a time limit on it, Potter, or I won't agree."

Harry scowled. Bastard, he thought.

"Fine," Harry growled. "Will you, Lucius Malfoy, swear that neither you nor anyone in league with Voldemort or his followers will in any way cause harm to Albus Dumbledore until after he's been returned _safely_ to the care of a Healer at either Hogwarts castle or St Mungo's hospital?"

Lucius seemed to consider the request for a moment, as if verifying that Harry was not attempting to fool him again. "I will."

Harry would have nodded in satisfaction, were it not for the sight of flames spilling forth from Bellatrix's wand and wrapping around their joined hands. He attempted to pull his hand back away from the fire encasing his hand in panic, but Lucius held fast.

"Will you, Harry Potter, retrieve the Dark Lord's true Horcrux, Slytherin's locket, from its current location and return to this cave to hand it over to myself or one of the other Death Eaters occupying the cave?"

"I will."

A second flame shot out to form a spiral that looked curiously like the strands of DNA on the charts that Harry's Muggle science teacher had once shown his class before Harry had ever heard of Hogwarts.

"And will you not mention outside this cave the events that occurred here or the mission I have set for you until you have completed your task?"

"Hey!" Harry protested. That hadn't been mentioned before. Sneaky son of a –

"That's the deal, Potter," Lucius said, still gripping Harry's hand tightly.

Harry hesitated. He didn't want to die just because he somehow managed to let the details of this encounter slip without meaning to. But then, there really was no choice. The options were to take a chance, or to resign himself to Dumbledore, and probably himself as well, dying slowly and without any hope of being saved. It was a no-brainer, really.

"I will."

A third flame appeared.

After a few moments, Lucius allowed Harry's hand to fall away from his. In seconds, all evidence that there had ever been strange, red-hot fire anywhere within the cave had disappeared. All that was left was the vaguely greenish glow of the cave, and the far-away glow of Dumbledore's Lumos charm, which had yet to fail. At least he was strong enough and conscious enough for that, Harry thought thankfully, though that was barely any comfort at all when Harry could still hear the echo of the Headmaster's wheezing, even across the lake.

As Harry cast a lighting charm, he looked beseechingly at Lucius. He didn't want to have to beg, but…

"Couldn't you at least give him a glass of water? As a gesture of good will."

It was Bellatrix that laughed uproariously, while Lucius just looked mildly amused, but mostly just calculating.

"Run along, little baby boy," the woman crowed. "You've obviously forgotten who you're dealing with. Best leave before I remind you what the Dark Lord's faithful servants can do to little half-blood babies like you."

Harry glared. "Psychotic bitch," he cursed, and forced himself to walk away before he could do something for which he would be made to feel very sorry indeed.

"Don't dally, Potter," Lucius called after him. "My Lord informs me that the poison isn't generally fast-acting, but with someone already as old and weakened as Dumbledore…"

Harry tried very hard to ignore this as he rubbed one of his many grazes, trophies of sorts from his scuffle with the Inferi, against the stone so that the archway once more allowed him through. He didn't look back, for he knew that if he had to see Dumbledore's prone body in amongst the Inferi once more, he'd forget all about the danger, the Vow, and plain common sense in favour of rushing back in there.

Fire, Harry remembered as soon as he stepped outside. Dumbledore had told him that fire would have driven the Inferi back. Perhaps, if he'd remembered that quickly enough, Harry could have got himself and Dumbledore out of there before Lucius could make his move.

It was a bit late now, though. The Inferi were hardly the most dangerous thing he'd have to deal with in that cave now.

When he reached the Apparition line, he hesitated. Use his intelligence, Lucius had said. That meant that it had to be somewhere that Harry actually knew of, surely. Somewhere he had access to and Voldemort didn't.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

Harry had never hated the anti-Apparition wards around Hogwarts more than at that moment. He didn't have the time or the energy to run from Hogsmeade to the castle, and he didn't have any other form of transportation. But he hardly had a choice, did he?

He Apparated in the middle of the main street in Hogsmeade and was just about to take off on the road towards the school when he heard a gasp. Then someone called out, "Harry Potter!" and Harry turned around to see Madam Rosmerta rushing down the street. "Thank goodness you're safe, boy!"

"What?" Harry asked, uncomprehending. Could she possibly be somehow aware of what had just happened? Harry took in her dishevelled appearance – obviously she'd been ready for bed – and wondered what could possibly have prodded the witch to run around outside looking like that where anyone could see her.

"You mean you don't know?" Rosmerta gaped. "I thought you must have somehow got yourself out, got past the Apparition lines and come here to escape from them."

"From who?" Harry demanded.

"The Death Eaters! I saw the Dark Mark, over the school…"

Harry looked in the direction she was pointing and immediately felt himself go even colder than he already was standing out in the chill of the night. There, over the castle, loomed the snake and skull combination that meant that there were Death Eaters inside the school… that meant Death Eaters were _killing_ people inside the school, in fact.

His friends were probably in the corridors still, at his request.

What had he done?

Harry turned panicked eyes back to the woman. "I need to get there! Now!"

It was Rosmerta's turn to look completely confused. "Of course not! You need to stay here! They're probably there looking for you. Dumbledore will –"

"Dumbledore's…" Harry began, and then remembered that the terms of the Vow meant that he couldn't tell anyone the details of exactly where Dumbledore was. "Dumbledore's away from the school. He won't make it back in time to help. I have to go."

Rosmerta seemed stunned. "_Away_? But how could he be away now, when the school needs him more than ever?"

"Look, do you have a broom that I can borrow, or what?"

She nodded, looking terrified. "Behind the bar. I can –"

"_Accio_ Rosmerta's broom!" Harry cried out.

It only took a few seconds for a broom to smack into his hand, accompanied by the crashing sound of whatever glass objects it had clearly knocked over on its way to him.

"But the school is warded against people approaching by broomstick!" she informed him as he hooked a leg over the broom.

Harry turned to glower at her, even though he knew it was hardly her fault that he was so angry and scared. "There are Death Eaters in the school; I think it's safe to say that the wards probably aren't working," he said. "Look, go inside and get word off to the Ministry, if you can, just in case no one else has been able to. And I'll be fine," he assured her when she gave him a worried look.

Harry kicked off the ground and took off in the direction of Hogwarts and the Dark Mark.

Strangely enough, it would appear that the wards were very much intact, because something was slowing his flight. Harry was now close enough that he could specifically see that the Dark Mark was suspended above the Astronomy Tower, and he angled his broom towards it. However, his broom slowed practically to a stop. Before he could halt completely, and potentially be caught in place within the wards, he guided the broom down towards the ground. He'd made it a fair way, at least. He could run the rest of the way through the external wards. Or, at least, he hoped he could.

Exhausted and bruised from having tripped over what seemed like every single tree root in the part of the Forbidden Forest closest to the school, where he'd come down to the ground, Harry eventually made it out of the trees. Desperately, he attempted to kick off on the broom again, breathing a sigh of relief to find his flight unimpeded now that he was properly inside the school grounds.

When Harry flew onto the ramparts, he dismounted and tossed the broom somewhere behind him. Wand withdrawn, he started towards the stairs, but even as he reached the door, it flew open and a disarming spell was shot at him. Harry tried to duck aside but wasn't fast enough, and his wand flew out of his hand, disappearing over the edge of the battlements. Well, he was royally screwed, now.

"Potter?" a surprised voice asked.

Draco Malfoy came through the door, then, and Harry had a strange sense of déjà vu. It hadn't been more than twenty minutes ago that he'd seen Malfoy's father in the dark, his face lit by little more but the green light of a far-off basin. Now here was the younger Malfoy, with a greenish tinge cast on his paler than normal complexion by the Dark Mark hovering above them. Which Draco himself had probably sent up, Harry realised. He rather hoped that Malfoy was the only Death Eater in the building. A sixteen-year-old Draco Malfoy on a power trip was much more manageable than dozens of fully-grown Death Eaters storming the castle.

Then Harry heard a pained sounding shout drifting up the stairs past Malfoy, and his hopes left him. He was in real trouble.

"Where's Dumbledore?" Malfoy demanded.

"Not here, obviously," Harry replied. He was rather surprised that Malfoy wasn't shooting curses at him, considering that Harry was unarmed and couldn't fight back. However, the other boy was either too distracted by the fact that Dumbledore wasn't here, as Malfoy had obviously expected him to be, or was waiting for the right time to strike. Either way, Harry wasn't game to attempt to attack the other boy physically or even to grab the broom and get the hell out of there, as that would probably provoke an all-out duel. Normally Harry might have actually looked forward to that opportunity, but it'd be pretty short-lived when he didn't even have a wand at hand.

He really didn't have time for this, he decided.

"Where is Dumbledore? Don't think I won't kill you, Potter!"

With those words, the déjà vu of earlier faded completely. Harry knew that if Lucius Malfoy had said those words, Harry would actually have believed him without question. With Draco, it sounded like nothing more than an empty threat by a scared boy. His wand was even shaking as it pointed at him. Harry gave him an unimpressed look.

"He's not in the castle, Malfoy, and he's not coming back, either. If you're doing all this to get to him, then you've got piss poor timing."

Malfoy looked something of a mixture between disbelieving and devastated. "Not… oh, _fuck_. So he's still in Hogsmeade? What, hasn't he seen the Mark?"

Harry admitted in his own mind to being thoroughly confused. "Hogsmeade? He was never in Hogsmeade. Well, maybe for a minute or so."

Draco cursed, something that sounded very much like, "Fucking Rosmerta. 'Just going for a drink', she says…"

Harry blanched. "Rosmerta's a Death Eater?"

Draco glared at him. "Why should I tell you anything? And where the bloody hell is Dumbledore, since you seem to know so much?"

Harry shrugged. "'Fraid I can't say. Since, you know, I'd die if I told you. And since I've already had loads of opportunity to decide that that's not really on my to-do list today…"

Malfoy just shook his head. "You're either completely barmy, Potter, or you have a definite death wish. Or both, I suppose. Somehow I'm not even surprised. I always thought you were an unstable lunatic."

Again Harry shrugged. "You're probably right. But I really _can't_ tell you anything, even if I wanted to. Which I don't, by the way, because I really hate you a lot right now. Well, and every other time as well, obviously, since you're always a prat. Now, I'm in a bit of a hurry to get downstairs, because I can hear a mighty ruckus down there, so if you don't hurry up and step back out of my way –"

Draco laughed, though it sounded strained. "Yeah, right. I'll just let you go down there and fight, is that what you think? You _are_ mad."

Harry would have liked to have replied, but at that moment the door flew open again and Malfoy was jostled out of the way. Harry half expected to see Hogwarts teachers. He was, however, very drastically disappointed, because it was actually four unknown faces that greeted him, one of which was covered, particularly around the mouth, with blood that didn't look to be his own. Death Eaters, by the look of them. Harry didn't know whether to laugh hysterically or cry. Unlike Draco Malfoy, these people likely wouldn't hesitate to cast a quick Killing Curse on him. Two words and he would be dead. No more Harry Potter. No more prophecy. And the world would keep spinning regardless, though Harry hated to think what would happen to Dumbledore if Harry couldn't come back for him.

For the second time in only a few hours, there appeared to be a very good chance that Harry was about to die. How did he get himself into these situations?

"What's this then?" the sole female Death Eater asked, sounding affronted, as if Malfoy and himself had cheated her out of something. "That's obviously not Dumbledore!"

"No," agreed the man with the bloody face.

Malfoy's attention was brought to the men and Harry could see the recognition in his eyes. "Greyback," he whispered fearfully.

He was Fenrir Greyback, Harry realised, and he'd obviously been biting people, probably Harry's friends. Oh yes, there was that hysteria that had been just waiting to hit him.

"It's not Dumbledore," Greyback continued. "But it _is_ Harry Potter, all alone and unarmed, which is probably nearly as good."

"That's right," another one of them said. Harry thought he looked like he must be related to the woman. "The Dark Lord will reward us just as well when we bring Potter to him, especially if we can find Dumbledore as well. Well done, Draco."

Malfoy didn't look particularly pleased at the praise. "Dumbledore's apparently disappeared, according to Potter. Normally I wouldn't believe him, but the Headmaster should have turned up by now. That would seem to speak for itself."

"Well then, Potter, where is he?"

"As I already told Malfoy," Harry said irritably, knowing that he wasn't doing himself any favours with his tone and yet somehow not caring, "I really can't talk about it."

"Oh, just kill him and we'll go look in Hogsmeade for him," the woman suggested. "For what I'm certain is the first time in his life, Draco is right; Dumbledore's obviously not here in the building. With any luck, he's already dead anyway."

At that moment, there was a large noise just outside the door, and in came Snape, whose dark eyes seemed to take in the situation – including, undoubtedly, the five wands pointing in Harry's direction and the lack of even Harry's single wand pointing back – in an instant. Harry would have been a lot happier to see him had he barged in with curses blazing. The fact that he and the Death Eaters weren't attacking each other didn't spell good news for Harry.

"Where is the Headmaster?" Snape asked in a deadly cold voice.

Greyback grinned, and Harry could see blood coating his teeth. And was that a piece of flesh stuck in his teeth? On second thought, Harry really didn't want to know. He felt sick enough already.

"A bit late in joining the action, eh, Snape? Potter claims he's not at the school and won't tell us where he is. We were just about to kill the little runt. I was planning on ripping his throat open and letting him bleed out – he's a bit older than I like them, but he's still got that delicious innocence about him – but now that you're here, Snape… well, we all know how much you hate him, so if you'd like the honours…"

You just try it, Harry thought, but he didn't glare at Snape the way he would have liked to as the man looked at him, his expression closed.

"Er, you know…" Harry began doubtfully. "Well, I don't want to tell you your business, or anything, but it's probably not a good idea to kill me right now. Your master wouldn't really like it. A few days from now, maybe, but –"

"Do shut up, Potter," Snape barked.

Harry fell silent. That was just a measure of the gravity of the situation, really, wasn't it? Harry was even voluntarily taking orders from Snape for that sliver of hope that it might get him out of there, alive.

"For once in his life, the boy is actually telling the truth," Snape said after a moment. "You all have heard the Dark Lord's orders; Potter is for him and him alone. None of you will touch him."

"So we take him with us," the woman suggested instead, her voice impatient.

"No. The Dark Lord had another plan running parallel to this one, and I can see the knowledge in the boy's mind that it has worked quite well indeed. The Dark Lord will be displeased if Potter is killed now. We need to leave."

"What?" one of the Death Eaters said. "But we've accomplished nothing by coming here! And what plan? You're just making this up, aren't you?"

Snape scowled, and everyone in the room seemed to try to put just a little more distance between him and themselves, as if in fear. "Do you think the Dark Lord would tell _you_ everything there was to know? If you wish to question his orders, feel free to do so in his presence," Snape suggested. The other Death Eater seemed to shrink under his glare. "Suffice to say, we aren't needed here any longer. If you wish to live to see tomorrow, I suggest you get out of here before that lot downstairs regroups. We are grossly outnumbered."

Snape and the others seemed to be in a silent stand-off, with Draco simply glancing back and forwards between them, as if contemplating which side would be the best for him to take, if it came down to it.

As it happened, it didn't come down to it at all.

"Let's go," the woman said. The Death Eaters, including Draco, seemed to all head for the door just a moment after her command.

Greyback looked back at Harry before he left and said, "I look forward to coming back and sinking my teeth into you, little Chosen One."

"Bite me," Harry choked out, unable to put quite the amount of hate behind it he would have liked.

Greyback cackled. "Next time, I promise."

Then there was just him and Snape, who looked very much like he wanted to beat Harry to a pulp with his bare hands.

"You _left_ him there!" Snape hissed angrily once the others were out of earshot. "The Dark Lord didn't imagine that that plan would work, for he didn't think for a moment that you'd actually just _leave_ him. He'll be dead before you go back, you idiot. He has barely a day, I'd say, and you'll take much longer than that. No, idiot boy," Snape snapped when Harry opened his mouth, "don't talk about it! Do you have a death wish?"

Harry shook his head, stunned. It was clear that Snape was performing Legilimency on him, but not in any way he'd done to Harry in the past. This was more like the way Dumbledore or Voldemort did it, without having to even cast a spell. Merlin help them all if Snape had managed to become _that_ good at it.

"You should have killed him yourself, Potter," Snape said, "to put him out of his misery. Then you could have at least made a run for it before Lucius could rope you into this little game that's going to get you killed before you can _do your job_."

Snape whirled and took off, leaving Harry dumb-struck.

"Is that what you would have done?" Harry whispered angrily, but couldn't bring himself to go after Snape to actually demand an explanation, and not just for fear of breaking the Vow and getting himself killed. He wasn't at all sure that he wanted to know the answer. It seemed fairly clear, after that one-sided talk, that Snape was most definitely on their side after all, and Harry didn't want to believe that anyone on their side could just _do_ something like that.

In the midst of a war or not, there had to be limits, surely.

That thought reminded Harry that there was a fight going on downstairs right at that moment, and that Dumbledore was running out of time. There were too many things that he needed to do at once. He was getting a headache just thinking about it, and he was exhausted, to say the least, but this was no time to slack off.

Harry was down the stairs in what seemed like an instant, not even thinking about the fact that he had no wand to fire spells with. He didn't care, because if the Death Eaters were hurting his friends, he would happily physically attack them if he had to.

However, Harry and the rest of the Order were in luck, because the Death Eaters who'd fled from the top of the tower only a minute ago had obviously called for a retreat. There were a few still about – McGonagall looked to be almost pleased that the female Death Eater who'd been up on the battlement hadn't able to manage a quick escape; McGonagall was presently tossing her about in a duel. Harry saw Snape just disappearing from sight, as if it had taken a while to get through the crowd – but by and large, the Death Eaters had either fled, or were on the ground, unconscious. Or, at least in the case of one he could see just down the hall, probably dead.

Harry could see that most of his friends were safe, though Neville looked particularly pale, and Ginny had actually broken out in a sweat, as if she'd been constantly bodily dodging curses. Hermione and Luna were nowhere in sight. He wondered whether Snape had done anything to them to get past them and up to the Tower, but it really wasn't really the time to worry about it right at that moment. Snape was on their side; he was fairly sure of that, after what he'd said to Harry earlier. If he wasn't, surely he would have just fled with the others instead of holding back and berating Harry like that.

Ginny raced over to him and embraced him.

"Harry, when did you get back?" she whispered. Harry ignored her words, simply letting himself be held for a moment. He was the one to break away.

"A while ago. But I have to leave again. Right now."

"What? But Harry –"

Harry ignored her completely, walking swiftly away even as she called after him.

It occurred to Harry that he hadn't really thought his plan through properly. He had thought, since Voldemort was afraid of Dumbledore, that it might have been Hogwarts to which Harry but not Voldemort had access. But now that he had a moment to think, he realised that Voldemort thought that Snape was his agent, whether or not it was true, and he could have retrieved what Voldemort was after. As he'd so eloquently proven tonight, Voldemort certainly had access to the school if he wanted it.

Though, on the other hand, there _was_ actually one place inside the school that did make perfect sense. Neither Dumbledore nor Snape had access to it – not without help, anyway – and nor did anyone else presently living apart from Harry and Voldemort. Voldemort had, in fact, presumably spent a lot of time during his time at Hogwarts there. Except, since it was inside Hogwarts, even Voldemort himself didn't really have access to it anymore either. So that left only Harry.

Even so, after a quick stop to retrieve his wand, Harry wasn't exactly happy to find himself back down in the Chamber of Secrets. He scoured every corner of the place for traces of magic. It smelled a thousand times worse than it had the last time he'd been there; on top of the stench of plumbing, stale air and the occasional small animal that had been mostly eaten, there was now also an extremely large rotting snake carcass adding its own pungent aroma to the air. Harry felt even more sick than he had at any point so far that night – he thought that that was really saying something, all things considered.

Unfortunately, there was nothing magical to be found in the cave apart from the Basilisk and the large door that led into the Basilisk's final resting place. It was a shame, not only because it meant that Harry had to come up with some better idea of where to look, but because this one had been so perfect. Slytherin's locket in Slytherin's chamber, from which only Harry could help Voldemort retrieve the Horcrux.

But then, it occurred to Harry as he climbed back out of the cave that it had been a little _too_ neat, for he obviously hadn't thought it through. It hadn't been Voldemort who had moved the locket to its current location, but another man all together. Black, who had apparently been a former Death Eater, had been the one to place the locket, if Lucius was telling the truth. He couldn't have entered the Chamber of Secrets any more than most other witches and wizards could've. Harry sighed in frustration. He'd wasted an hour down there, and had nothing more than slimy clothing to show for it.

But there must be somewhere else; there had to be. Harry didn't have access to that many places. There were public places, like Diagon Alley, that Voldemort wouldn't really be able to go – not without a large-scale panic and being attacked by enough Aurors that it would at the very least prove a bit inconvenient (though Harry didn't delude himself that Voldemort couldn't have slapped down the entire Auror squad like flies, if he had to) – but many of his Death Eaters were not restricted in the same way. Then there was the school, which he'd ruled out. The Weasleys' house was well-warded, but it wouldn't be anything like impossible for Death Eaters to break in, even if the Aurors were guarding it as they did while Harry was staying there. The Order of the Phoenix Headquarters, Harry had never visited…

But he did have _access_ to it, didn't he? Dumbledore was the Secret Keeper, and Dumbledore himself had told Harry the location, just in case Harry found himself in need of a quick hideaway. Dumbledore had said he hoped it never came to that, but Harry knew that the Headmaster had liked to be prepared for the worst. Even, apparently, for the idea that he was going to die before the Horcruxes were all found and Voldemort could be defeated.

Most witches and wizards refused to believe in their own mortality, clinging to the idea that they were somehow _safe_. Dumbledore had obviously felt that he didn't have that luxury.

Harry was starting to realise that _he_ didn't, either.

* * * * *

The old abandoned warehouse that the Order had made into its Headquarters was in the depths of industrial London, one of the last places that any self-respecting wizard would want to go. When Harry had been told as much by the Order members who had actually spent time there, he'd supposed that that had been part of its initial appeal. Of course, considering that Dumbledore had since performed the Fidelius Charm on the place once the Order actually moved into it permanently, it seemed like overkill.

Then again, it would seem that strange movement in the area was less likely to attract Muggle attention than elsewhere in the city. Despite the undoubtedly large crack that must have sounded to Muggle ears like a gunshot, there was no one in the area (if there even _was_ anyone around there at that time of night) reacted as Harry slipped out of the alleyway and into the deserted street. Perhaps they were simply used to it. His Uncle Vernon could often be heard raging about gang violence in certain parts of London, after all.

It was the work of only a minute or two to get to the warehouse. Harry had heard jokes about how the entire Order was more likely to be wiped out by the building collapsing around them during a meeting than by Voldemort and his followers, but he'd thought them to be exaggerations. After all, Fred and George couldn't tell the straight truth to save their lives. Now that he could see it for himself, however, he realised that there was at least a bit of truth in it. A floorboard squeaked ominously as he opened the door and stepped across the threshold.

Harry thought he could feel the wards, which felt vaguely reminiscent of Dumbledore's magic, accepting him. The continued presence of the spells was comforting. After all, though Harry was fairly certain that the Fidelius Charm didn't just _fail_ after the Secret Keeper's death – that'd make it a bit too simple to get around, really – that wasn't true of all of the other wards.

Harry couldn't imagine how the locket could possibly have gotten to this place, given that it had been removed from that cave long before the Order of the Phoenix had reconvened, and longer still before this place had been selected for the Order's use. Still, it couldn't be ruled out that the person who'd taken the locket, Black, had somehow got the locket to an Order member (maybe even without their knowledge) upon betraying Voldemort, after which it could have made its way to the Headquarters. Stranger things had happened. Certainly, Harry thought that it would be extremely stupid not to at least _check_, given that this location clearly fit the parameters. Now that he was looking around the place, it was obvious that there weren't many places the thing could be hidden in the large but fairly empty building, so it wouldn't take long. He would rather waste twenty minutes getting here and searching than to waste days looking for the locket elsewhere only to eventually find it somewhere this simple.

He didn't _have_ days. Snape had made that clear.

It was clear which was the main room that the Order used. It was the largest area, and was the only place in the whole building where the furniture – which, incidentally, only consisted of the biggest tables Harry had seen outside the Hogwarts Great Hall and three dozen or so chairs – wasn't covered in about a foot of dust and grime. The place was more than a little disgusting, Harry thought, but it was still far preferable to the Chamber of Secrets, and it wasn't as if Harry wasn't already covered in grime anyway.

After poking around for a while, casting every spell he could think of as well in case the thing was magically hidden, it became obvious that there was no sign that the locket was, or had at any point been, in the building. Harry wasn't surprised, though he still felt the tiniest twinge of disappointment. Every failure meant longer before he could help Dumbledore, after all.

Harry sighed, knowing where he had to go next. He cast an only half-effective cleaning spell over himself, hoping that might be enough to prevent the door being slammed in his face just at the sight of him.

He doubted it, somehow.

* * * * *

To say that the Dursleys weren't impressed at being woken up by someone incessantly knocking on the front door of Number 4 Privet Drive before the crack of dawn was an understatement. When they found that that someone was their nephew, whose presence they'd thought they still had at least a week or so without, it was lucky that the whole neighbourhood wasn't awoken along with them at the volume of Vernon Dursley's yelling.

"Look, I just need to look around the house," Harry entreated.

"What, and put your grubby paws all over our good things?" Aunt Petunia scoffed. Harry had been right. She really _didn't_ look at all impressed by the state of him. But then, she never did, no matter how clean and (relatively) tidy he might be.

"Bad enough that we have to put up with you on your holidays, boy," said Uncle Vernon, "but there'll be none of this turning up early – and in the middle of the night, no less – and asking for free reign. You've got some nerve –"

"I don't have time for this!" Harry cut him off, glaring at him. Uncle Vernon actually seemed shocked at this display of defiance. Harry could hardly blame him. His answer to everything was usually 'yes, Uncle Vernon', just to avoid having to deal with them shouting at him any more often than absolutely necessary.

"It's a matter of life and death, all right? I can't afford to waste time waiting for your permission."

Even as Harry went to move past them, his uncle grabbed him by the collar and shoved him back to where he'd been standing.

"If you're being chased about by that – that other _freak_ who wants to kill you, then you can definitely just get out now. You've already done enough damage. Setting those Demonoids after Dudley –"

"Dementors," Harry corrected quietly, though he doubted Uncle Vernon had taken a long enough breath to hear him; the redness of his face would suggest he hadn't.

"– and then telling us that some lunatic could come and kill us in our beds at any minute because of you!"

"That's not true!" Harry argued. "The things that protect me while I'm here protect you, too. Or, at least, they will until I'm seventeen," Harry said thoughtfully. "I don't really know what happens after then. But, you know, if you see people in black robes and white masks wondering around on any day but Halloween – or even on Halloween, really, I suppose, since it's not like they take the day off –" his uncle's thunderous expression reminded Harry that he was getting off track. "Well, in that case you'd probably want to move house. Quickly."

"MOVE?" Uncle Vernon boomed. "How dare you suggest –"

"Or, you know, feel free to stay here and be killed, if that's what you want," Harry added angrily. "I'm only trying to help."

"Then help us by leaving!" Vernon demanded.

"Not going to happen. Even if I have to use magic to keep you out of my way, I'll eventually find a way to search this house. It would be easier if you just let me do it. After all, the quicker I start, the faster I leave. I'll be out of your hair for another week, assuming I come back at all."

"Fine, boy, we'll make a deal," Vernon stated. "You can look around the house and such as long as you're gone before I have to leave for work; I'm not leaving you here alone with my wife while you're able to do your hocus pocus on her."

As if the man could do anything to stop him while he was there to 'protect' her, if it was actually Harry's intention to hurt any of them. He rolled his eyes. He was about to agree, though, since he had no intention of being here more than an hour or two anyway, when Vernon added another stipulation.

"And as long as you don't come back for the summer."

Harry had to stop and think about that. Dumbledore had told him that he would need to go back until he was seventeen… that there was no other way to be certain he would be safe until then…

But Dumbledore would die if Harry couldn't find the Horcrux, Harry reminded himself. That was his main concern. What happened after that seemed a lifetime away.

"Fine."

His aunt was the first to step aside. Uncle Vernon eyed him in a predatory manner for a few more moments before Harry walked around him, this time unimpeded. Harry was about to head to his cupboard to start there – after all, it was likely that the object might have come with him when he first arrived, if it had been a number of years since it was replaced with the fake, when he realised that if that was the case, it wouldn't have been left with him. He turned around, this time to face his aunt.

"When I first arrived here, was there anything with me? It might have been some kind of small object, particularly a locket, but anything at all, really."

Aunt Petunia pursed her lips at him as if she was going to refuse to answer, but Harry saw her head shake slightly in denial nonetheless. "There was nothing but a note, telling us who you were and why you were here. It would certainly have been nice if there had been anything of worth left to pay for you, but nothing like that could be expected from _your kind_, I suppose."

Harry rolled his eyes again. "Right." It couldn't have been as simple as that. Nothing ever was.

It took Harry about an hour and a half to thoroughly search the whole house. Well, he actually finished nearly two hours after he started, but that was because Uncle Vernon had interrupted him twice; once when he wanted to go into Dudley's room, because how dare Harry think that he could besmirch perfect Dudley's things, and again when he tried to enter their room, because he had no right to go about looking at, and likely trying to steal, their private possessions. The final time had been when an owl had arrived. Harry took the letter to get rid of the owl, and to subsequently stop Uncle Vernon from howling about it, but then tossed it aside without reading it. He knew what it would say, after all. 'Dear Mr Potter, blah blah, you have used underage magic off school grounds, blah, expelled, blah, whatever'. Harry really couldn't care less, all things considered. It was just yet another thing that he'd worry about _later_.

Harry didn't find a single magical item, except for a quill with a self-sharpening tip that he'd accidentally left behind. He pocketed the quill in order to avoid Uncle Vernon's wrath, should he leave it there.

He swore, ignoring Uncle Vernon's equally colourful (and hypocritical) response to his foul language.


	3. Chapter 3

******CHAPTER THREE**

The sun hadn't risen above the horizon yet when Harry left the Dursley's house, but there was nonetheless a soft, faded sort of early-morning light projected over Privet Drive.

Unfortunately, the dawn didn't exactly bring hope, as Harry was sort of out of ideas of where to look next. Lucius had definitely been right about his intelligence, he guessed; it wasn't all that it could be.

He hoped that he'd come up with something on his way back to the place to which he'd originally Apparated. He hadn't been able to Apparate straight into the Dursley's house, of course, since they would either have died of fright or killed him when they realised who he was – he knew how well Aunt Petunia could aim when throwing dangerous items such as frypans and cheap mugs, after all. The only place where he knew that no one could conceivably be about to witness his appearing seemingly out of nowhere at this hour of the morning was a good five minutes' walk away, somewhere close to the tiny local shopping village.

When Harry turned down the road at the end of the Dursley's driveway, he was stunned to see a black dog sitting near the bushes that divided the Dursley's and the next-door neighbour's yard. He'd seen the dog on his way to the house. It had been hard to miss, after all, hulking mass of muscle and fur that it was. He was just amazed that it was still there.

Who in their right mind, animal or not, would stay anywhere near the Dursleys' house longer than they had to?

The thing had scared him a little, initially. He'd heard something rustling around near the Dursley's house and had half expected Death Eaters to jump out at him, despite Snape's insinuation that he was going to be left alone until he found Voldemort's Horcrux for him. He wasn't afraid of the dark, exactly, but the darkness made everything – every sound, every movement caught out of the corner of his eye – much more real and threatening. Even once he'd established that it wasn't Death Eaters, Harry hadn't been sure how comfortable he was standing exposed out on the street with that enormous animal only a few feet away. He'd been very glad to get inside the Dursleys' house. It occurred to him that that would be the first and hopefully last time he had ever been even slightly pleased to cross his relatives' threshold.

In the half-light of the early morning, though, the dog didn't look even half as menacing as it did before. Its tongue lolled almost happily out the side of its mouth at the sight of someone to keep it company.

Harry didn't think he'd be good company for _anything_ at the moment.

He was quite surprised when the animal padded along behind him once he'd started walking. Luckily, it seemed to prove to be harmless. After it had followed him for a few minutes, it came right up to him and brushed itself against his leg in a friendly and actually rather cat-like manner. Its tail waved back and forth so fast it seemed to blur. Harry smiled grudgingly. The rest of his walk would probably be unimpeded if he just gave the animal a moment of his time now, he supposed. Surely that was excuse enough for the fact that he found himself reaching down and scratching it behind the ears. The tail seemed to quicken in motion, though Harry had doubted that that was possible.

The dog seemed to collapse onto the ground, rolling over to show Harry its belly. Harry laughed softly, and then caught himself. He didn't really have the right to feel remotely amused about anything just then.

He was about to leave the dog behind when a convenience store, which amazingly was open even at this hour, caught his eye. Maybe food would help with the complete lack of energy he was feeling.

However, Harry quickly realised that he was in Muggle territory with no Muggle currency. He half-growled in annoyance. Why hadn't he thought about that before? He couldn't just go wondering around the Muggle world without a single coin on him. His wizarding money was low as well, come to think of it. What if he got into an emergency, or found the Horcrux in a place from which he would have to purchase it? He'd be screwed, that's what.

He was going to have to visit Gringotts.

He supposed that he could Apparate, but he had no idea whether one was able to Apparate into the Leaky Cauldron or the Alley itself, and he didn't know enough about the surrounding area to pick out a safe place. He really was going to have to pay more attention the small simplicities of how the wizarding world worked if he wanted to be able to live in it after he finished at Hogwarts. As it was, he'd likely end up at Hermione's side every two seconds asking stupid questions that he should, after six years in the wizarding world thus far, know the answer to.

Harry steeled himself and flung his wand arm into the air. He didn't particularly like travelling this way – that one time he'd done so with Tonks and Kingsley on the way to the Weasleys' had been enough to put him off for life – but there was, on this occasion, little choice left to him.

The giant purple Knight Bus appeared out of thin air with a crack similar to the sound of Apparition.

The dog jumped and let out a low yelp of surprise. The two or three Muggles on the street within viewing distance of this occurrence, though, seemed not to notice anything out of the ordinary. They saw what they wanted to see, Harry thought to himself, bemused.

"I'm going away now," Harry said quietly to animal as the door of the bus opened, and a familiar pimple-filled face appeared. "Thanks for keeping me company."

"Welcome to the… Harry Potter!"

"The Leaky Cauldron," said Harry brusquely, "and I'll pay extra if you get me there as fast as possible and without talking to me more than absolutely necessary."

Stan seemed a bit put out by his rudeness. Harry didn't care.

"Awright. Express to the Leaky. That'll be a Galleon."

Harry thought that this was rather steep, but stepped onto the bus and reached into his money bag nonetheless. He'd better be the very next stop, for that price.

"Oy, you'll have to pay another five sickles for the dog, though!" Stan said. "Pets annoy the other passengers, 'specially one's not caged up. Can't be letting him go wild with nothin' innit for us!"

Harry frowned and turned to look where Stan was wildly gesturing. The large black dog was there; his front legs were propped up on the bus step and his hind legs still on the sidewalk, as if waiting for Harry to move further into the bus so that he could get fully inside and follow him.

Harry was about to say that the dog wasn't his, but then he saw the dog's big, almost pleading look. Puppy eyes, indeed. No collar and tag, he noted abstractly. It was a stray (as if the fact that it clearly hadn't had a bath in practically forever wasn't enough on its own to give that away).

It wouldn't slow him down too much, surely. Harry thought he would like to have some company. He felt so damn alone at the moment, unable to tell anyone what he was going through without having the Vow strike him dead. He couldn't tell the dog either, just in case the inability to speak about it to 'anyone' applied to non-human individuals who couldn't understand him anyway, but silent companionship was still _something_.

"Fine," Harry said and fished out the extra coins. His money bag now lighter (he was very glad that he was going to Gringotts straight afterward), he allowed himself to be shown to a bed.

"Got 'ere just in time for a bed," Stan said. "Be changin'em into chairs in a half hour or so."

Harry glowered at him. "No talking, remember?"

Stan looked somewhat angry for a moment, but he said nothing in response to Harry's words, and he seemed to have been cowed at least a little. He probably didn't want to upset famous Harry Potter. Harry wasn't exactly in a good enough mood to be grateful that his fame had worked in his favour for once.

The dog jumped up and curled on the end of the bed as the bus shot into action. Well, over slightly more than half of the bed, actually, given its size.

Harry had to grab onto the nearest pole to keep from being flung backward. He pulled himself onto the space at the top of the bed. The dog rested its head on Harry's thigh and let out a huffing noise much like a sigh. Harry echoed the sound.

"I wish that I had some idea what I'm doing," Harry whispered. The dog lifted a paw up onto Harry's chest in an oddly comforting way, though of course the dog could hardly know that it was so. Harry smiled sadly and ran a hand through the fur on the dog's back, hardly caring that it felt more than just a little dirty beneath his fingers. The dog's tail beat against the bed a few times before stilling itself. Harry settled in for the ride.

* * *

A few odd looks and hasty manoeuvres through early morning rushes later, Harry stepped outside Gringotts with a bag full of a mixture of Muggle and wizarding money. He was surprised to see the dog where he had left him, sitting patiently outside the grand goblin-made building. He'd expected the animal to go off with someone else, or just plain get distracted by the hustle and bustle of wizards going in and out of the bank to exchange money before work and wander away. Instead, there it was waiting for him, rising from its sitting position when upon seeing him approach.

"If only you were a cat, I'd have to say you were part kneazle," Harry murmured.

He'd suspect it was a Death Eater in disguise or something, except that there was little point in having a Death Eater follow Harry around when Voldemort could have easily had Harry killed just a few hours earlier. Besides, since neither he nor the Dursley's had ever owned a dog and they weren't allowed at school, Harry wasn't all that sure that this wasn't normal dog behaviour. Harry didn't mind that the dog liked him enough to become so overly attached to him, anyway. It was a good feeling, to be liked unconditionally.

It was equally nice to sit outside a small coffee shop scoffing down pumpkin pasties and occasionally slipping portions to the dog. It looked like it was even hungrier than he was. Perhaps it had been out on the streets of Little Whinging for a long time. Harry thought that they might have been meant to come across each other.

If Harry believed in fate, anyway. After his rather unfortunate experiences with Divination of all sorts, especially prophecies, he wished fervently that he didn't.

This little slice of normality that he'd enjoyed over the last half hour or so, though, came to an abrupt end once Harry, with his hunger sated and feeling at least slightly rejuvenated, had escorted the dog back through the Leaky Cauldron. The dog's presence became less welcome, then. Harry didn't know what he was doing, or where he was going. He was going to have to Apparate somewhere eventually, and so he'd have to leave the dog then. He couldn't even afford to have it slowing him down even slightly in the mean time. Better to leave him now close to other witches and wizards who might help the poor animal, rather than to lead it into some other random part of London and then suddenly disappear seemingly into thin air in front of it.

"Look, I don't have any more treats, or anything," Harry said to it, "and as much as I like your company, I'll get along fine without you. Unless you know anything about Slytherin's locket, or about a man named 'Black', you can stop following me about."

Much to Harry's surprise, the dog suddenly grabbed his trousers with his teeth and attempted to drag him away from the Leaky Cauldron.

"Hey!" Harry said angrily, "get off! I have few enough pairs of pants without you ripping these to bits."

The dog let go and went behind him, nudging him persistently in the same direction as he had been trying to drag him. When Harry refused to move, the dog gave up and walked purposefully in that direction, turning around and looking at Harry as if he should be following.

Harry sighed disgustedly. "You want to go that way? Fine. Not like I have any better ideas, is it?"

Actually, it occurred to Harry not long after he'd begun trailing after the dog as if it actually knew where it was going that walking aimlessly about London was actually helping him clear his mind so that he could actually think straight.

He'd ruled out the Weasleys' house earlier, but he supposed that it remained as a last resort. It was conceivable that Arthur had brought the locket home from work, thinking that it had been a Muggle artefact cursed by wizards for Muggle-baiting, or that one of the Weasley children – probably Fred or George – had stumbled across it somewhere and held onto it.

There was also Godric's Hollow, where his parents had lived until they died. Dumbledore had informed Harry, when he asked about it, that the house had been in danger of being ransacked by disgruntled followers of the Dark Lord or exploited as a tourist spot after Lord Voldemort had fallen there. The Ministry had, therefore, deemed it necessary to put protection on the house. While Harry would be able to enter the house if he wished, others would have less success. Harry, however, wanted to avoid going there as long as possible. It wasn't that he was afraid of the house, though he wasn't exactly overjoyed at seeing where his parents had died. The problem was that Harry was sure that as soon as he saw the place, he'd be distracted by the fact that his parents had lived there. Some of their things were probably still there. He just didn't have time to look around and bask in their presence right then.

Harry focused on his surroundings again when the dog led him into… the Muggle Underground? But how would a dog that he'd found hours away from London know where to find this specific stop?

Harry looked suspiciously at the dog as it sauntered toward the ticket counter. It looked to Harry as if it was trying to look innocent, as if it knew exactly what it was doing and didn't want Harry to know so. Maybe the dog was some kind of intelligent magical creature they hadn't covered in Care of Magical Creatures. Its previous owner might have lived in London, and so of course it would know where the nearest Underground station to Diagon Alley was situated.

Harry was getting the oddest feeling that the dog might have belonged to someone in the Order of the Phoenix. It would certainly explain what it was doing outside Harry's relative's house, looking as if it was keeping watch. Even more so, it would explain why the dog had latched onto Harry Potter in particular. Harry might have even expected the dog was an actual Order _member_ (if only Harry had bothered to ever learn the Animagus reversal spell), except that Harry was well aware that McGonagall was the only living Order member who was an Animagus, and no one could mistake that small tabby for this monster of an animal.

On the basis of this odd hunch – and since Harry really had no better ideas – Harry let himself be led.

* * *

Nearly an hour passed, with Harry madly trying to concentrate on his predicament while inattentively stroking the dog's fur – which must have looked rather odd to anyone else on the train, since Harry had cast a Disillusionment Charm on the dog so that it could ride the Underground without any hassle. No odder than the people who kept tripping over what _looked_ at a glance to be thin air, though.

When they got off the train, Harry led the dog off into a corner so that he could counter the spell and be able to see it again. Then the dog once more sprang into action. Harry sighed and followed. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes before the dog turned in towards a large manor-like house. It sat itself on the doorstep and looked pointedly at Harry.

The house didn't look particularly inviting, being dirty and decrepit.

"Is this where you live?" Harry asked. The only reply he received was a huff, which Harry thought sounded a bit disgruntled, even coming from a dog.

Harry knocked several times on the dilapidated door, to no answer. The dog, however, reached up and scratched its paw on the door, and it immediately sprung open. Harry couldn't help but smile. Magical indeed. The dog obviously did live here, and the door was magically keyed to let it in.

The dog grabbed Harry by the trousers, much as it had done when it had first attempted to bring him here.

"This had better be important," Harry muttered, and followed the dog through the house. It was a rather creepy sort of place, with snakes and such displayed all over the place. Obviously it was a Slytherin's house. Harry kept expecting to walk into some Death Eater, who would then manage to forget Voldemort's orders and shoot a quick Killing Curse at him. Game over for both him and Dumbledore. The thought was not comforting.

As Harry walked through the hall, two things caught his eye. One was a slightly moving portrait of a rather severe woman, who seemed to be asleep. Though there were other portraits around the place, this one seemed to stand out. It shone, in a way. Harry decided that there must be a house elf somewhere around here, and that either it or the owner of the house must particularly love that picture. The other was the tapestry beside her. It was spread out proudly across the wall, though it's tattered state made it look more like something that ought to be hidden away. Several holes appeared to have been scorched through it in seemingly random places. However, upon closer inspection, Harry realised that it was an extremely large and detailed family tree, and the holes only appeared where it looked like there should be names.

Harry's eyes lifted up to the top of the tapestry – the thing was so big that the top resided somewhere near the roof – and by standing on his toes and squinting through his glasses he was able to make out the words, 'The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black'.

Harry dropped back down to the flats of his feet, nearly falling down entirely in shock. The dog, appearing to have noticed that he was no longer following it, had stopped as well. It was sitting near to him, giving him a rather curious look.

"Black," Harry whispered. He stared at the tapestry a while longer, and a strange sort of smile spread, unbeknownst to him, across his face. "Well, I'll be damned."


	4. Chapter 4

**********CHAPTER FOUR**

Harry would have preferred not to believe in fate. He didn't want to acknowledge that there was a prophecy out there that predicted that he would have to either kill or be killed, and probably fairly soon if current events were anything to go by. He didn't want to think about the idea that he didn't control even an instant of his own life himself, because his every step was already somehow preordained. He certainly didn't like the idea that even something as simple as his finding a stray dog was solely intended to lead him to exactly what he was looking for.

When Harry searched the house, he didn't find the locket. He found something that looked like a master bedroom, which – unlike the rest of the house – was relatively clean and dust-free. Up the end of the hall was something that Harry would have assumed to be a guest room, for all that it looked devoid of any personality. However, there was a note on the table. Harry skimmed it then stopped, feeling vaguely like he was invading someone's privacy. The note sounded like it was written by someone around about his own age, who was apparently named Sirius if the name at the bottom of the letter was anything to go by. It was a goodbye note, letting his parents know that he was leaving and never coming back, and good riddance to them. Harry wasn't sure who he should feel sorry for, the boy or his parents. After all, he had no idea what life in the Black house had been like. The family had yielded Death Eaters, after all.

Directly across the hall was a room that seemed to have been left the way it was the last time he was in the room. Unlike in Sirius's room, there were possessions sprawled on the floor, as if the owner of the room had been looking for something (or perhaps as if he had been packing). The bed was unmade. Dust had settled over every item, furniture or otherwise, in the room. On the desk was a lone item, as dust-covered as the rest and utterly unremarkable except for the fact that it had obviously been carefully placed. However, Harry's eyes had been drawn to the book. It was the one sign of order in a room of absolute chaos. It seemed intentional. When Harry picked it up, he saw two things of interest. Inside the cover was a name, Regulus Black. Also inside the cover was propped a folded piece of paper that stuck slightly out the top of the book, so that it could be seen only by those who looked extremely hard. After the guilt he'd felt at reading the last note, Harry was unsure if he should read this one.

The pressing need to do anything and everything he could to find the locket, though, won out.

The note was written in jagged, uneven script, as if the penman had been in a hurry when writing it. Perhaps he had been packing, after all. It read:

'If you are reading this, congratulations. You may be one of the few people who have ever entered the house of Black who is not entirely self-serving, myself included. I say this because the letter you are reading is spelled to only be able to be seen by someone who wishes harm on the man who goes by the title "the Dark Lord". It is an idea inspired by an item of unmentionable value I came across during my time at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

'This, believe it or not, is not a digression. In fact, it brings me to my point. I, Regulus Black, have discovered the Dark Lord's Horcrux. I intended to destroy it and thus make him mortal enough to be killed. However, I have thus far been unsuccessful, and my time is running out. I do not expect to live long enough to discover the secret to destroying it. Therefore, I must hide it.

'Since you are obviously a person who would like the world rid of its Dark Lord, you will be interested in what is hidden in Ravenclaw's reflection. Incidentally, though I don't understand how it could be possible for him to have more than one and still live, I have reason to believe that this item may itself be a Horcrux. I suspect a third, as well, though I do not know where it is held.

'If you are unaware of the meaning of this note, I beg for you to take it to Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts. He will know what to do.'

Harry sighed. Dumbledore _would_ know what to do. Irony was a cruel bitch.

Luckily, Harry did at least apparently have greater knowledge of Horcruxes generally than Regulus himself had appeared to. He also finally had an idea of where to start.

If it was something to do with Ravenclaw, the best place to find the information would be back at Hogwarts. Even though his search was leading him in circles, for the first time Harry thought that he was actually _getting_ somewhere.

Harry looked at the dog, who had been patiently watching him read. "I don't know what just happened today. I do know, though, that you don't deserve to be left here. This house is filled with dark magic. So, you're coming with me. We're going to have to go outside and find some kind of deserted area so that we can Apparate out of here. I'm not particularly good at Side-Along Apparition, so pray that we don't splinch ourselves."

The dog seemed to understand. It got up from where it had been lying on Regulus's messy bed and strode toward the door. Harry followed it out of the house and raised his eyebrows when it led him directly to a small empty side-alley barely a block away from the house.

Harry knelt down slightly and grabbed the dog around the middle.

"Hold on tight," he whispered.

* * *

There was a mixed welcome of shocked expressions and knowing looks when Harry finally stumbled into Hogwarts, his grip on the dog practically keeping him upright. He was exhausted, he could admit it. He would be willing to bet that when they looked at him, they saw a boy – or maybe even a man, for he certainly no longer felt like a boy – who was dead on his feet. For once, they likely had proper reason to stare unabashedly at him.

Harry ignored it, though, and led the dog up to Gryffindor Tower. He would have liked to go straight to the Headmaster's office and ask Dumbledore what was meant by 'Ravenclaw's reflection'. However, since Dumbledore wasn't there, he was going to have to do the next best thing.

Ask Hermione.

"Harry, where have you –"

"Not now, Hermione," Harry said as he entered into the common room. "You and Ron have to come with me."

They didn't come quietly, but they did come. Ginny tried to tag along, but Harry told her in no uncertain terms that it didn't concern her. He knew that she was hurt by this, but he really didn't have time to be worrying about that now. It had been about fifteen hours since Dumbledore had drunk that poison. That meant he'd been through fifteen hours of Death Eater guards, agony, and knowing that he was slowly inching towards death. Shed in that light, courtesy could screw itself.

When Harry finally led the other two Gryffindors, trailed by the dog, into the Room of Requirement (this was where Malfoy spent all his time planning to lead a Death Eater attack on the school, Harry thought bitterly), he was once again pelted by questions.

"Why did you come back yesterday and then leave again without telling us?"

"Where's Dumbledore?"

"Why do you have a ruddy enormous dog with you?"

"Where have you _been_? Professor McGonagall told us the Ministry sent her a letter saying you'd been put on warning for using underage magic _again_."

Harry raised a hand for quiet.

"I literally _can't_ tell you what you want to hear. I can't answer any questions about what's happened, and I'm sorry for that. It just has to be that way. So don't ask questions. All I can tell you now is, you know, the usual: the world is in danger, you're the only ones who can help me, and that Ravenclaw's reflection is the key."

Hermione and Ron both looked supremely confused.

"Um, Harry? Ravenclaw's reflection doesn't generally fit into the 'usual'," Hermione said tentatively.

Harry smiled self-depreciatingly. "Yeah, well, I've taken to relying on the word of a dog – who obviously can't even speak in the first place, by the way – to guide me in such matters, so 'usual' has taken on a new definition lately. No, you still don't want to ask."

After a long silence, Ron piped up, saying, "It really does look like a rather smart dog, at least."

Harry smirked. "You don't know the half of it. So anyway, I need to find something that could be referred to as 'Ravenclaw's Reflection'. There's something hidden in it that I need. I just need your help in figuring out what it could be."

Ron and Hermione were both silent for a long moment. Finally, it was Ron who spoke.

"All right, Harry," Ron agreed. "If it's that important, we can help you without asking questions. But we expect answers eventually."

Harry nodded. "Sometime in the not-too-distant future, I should be able to give them to you. But I'm really in a rush right now, so let's get on with it."

All three of them nodded to each other in agreement.

"Ravenclaw's reflection," Hermione repeated thoughtfully. "Well, 'reflection' could refer to things like mirrors, windows, even water. There are portraits, which can be referred to as reflections of the person painted in them. Ravenclaw could certainly have one of those, though I've never seen it."

"Probably in the Ravenclaw common room," Ron chimed in. "Just because we don't have one of Gryffindor, doesn't mean other houses don't have portraits like that."

"Or it could be in the Headmaster's office, I suppose," Hermione added.

Harry shook his head. "No, if there is one, it's not there. I've spent enough time in Dumbledore's office to say for sure that none of the founders have portraits in there. The Headmaster and Headmistress portraits only began being added a couple of hundred years ago, I think. There aren't enough of them to span the whole thousand years that Hogwarts has been around."

Hermione lightly slapped her hand to her forehead. "Of course. How could I be so stupid? 'Hogwarts, A History' even says that the portraits were started in 1643, when the new Headmaster felt that he needed the expertise of the last and it was decided that a collection of such expertise should be available –"

Harry interrupted, keen to cut off her latest 'Hogwarts, A History' lecture before it could really pick up steam. "So, Ravenclaw Tower, or nothing."

"Come to think of it," Ron said slowly. "It could be the Tower itself, couldn't it? I mean, you could say that the Ravenclaw house is a reflection of Ravenclaw herself."

Harry shook his head. "No, it's an item of some kind. Has to be. And besides, the person who did the hiding wouldn't have been able to get into Ravenclaw Tower."

Even if Regulus somehow hadn't already left Hogwarts by the time he stole the locket, Harry had seen the Slytherin crest on the school clothes littered the floor of Regulus's room. There was no way he would have had the password.

Of course, that hadn't stopped Harry and Ron getting into the Slytherin Common Room once before. Harry frowned.

"Who –" Hermione began, but then closed her mouth quickly when Harry glared at her. She remained silent for a short time.

"Well, the same thing goes for a statue as for a portrait. They can be reflections, but I've never seen one, and it's unlikely that it would be outside the Ravenclaw dormitories on the improbable chance that it existed at all. I'm just not sure what else it could be."

Harry nodded slowly. "So, earlier you said mirrors. That would seem like the most obvious thing that would fit."

"There are hundreds of mirrors in Hogwarts," Ron groaned. "How can we possibly test all of them?"

Harry shrugged. "We don't have to. It won't be just a bathroom mirror. If it's going to be a mirror, it's probably something that Ravenclaw owned or made. And something with some sort of magic of its own."

Hermione's eyes widened. "Harry, is this thing a _Horcrux_?"

Harry remained pointedly silent.

Hermione said, "Right, you can't tell us." Hermione and Ron looked at each other and both nodded their agreement that Hermione was correct. Harry was lucky to have a friend who was so intelligent.

Hermione frowned thoughtfully. "Well, let's see. Mirrors can have all sorts of powers. They can show the future and the past, though a lot of that's a rather foggy sort of Divination. They can show you your enemies, like a foe glass. They can work like a telephone, or the Floo, so that two people can talk to each other when they're physically separated. And remember the Mirror of Erised? It showed a person's deepest desire. That's not exactly child's play."

Harry nodded emphatically. The Mirror of Erised had indeed been powerful. He could half imagine a young Tom Riddle sitting in front of it, staring for hours at a mirror that showed him his desires. Perhaps his mother, through whom he had received that all-important pure Slytherin blood, or just himself becoming more powerful and wreaking destruction on the Muggle-born witches and wizards of the world.

"Oh Merlin," Harry breathed, feeling suddenly foolish. "The Mirror of Erised."

Both of his friends stared blankly at him for a moment. Then Hermione's eyes widened as well.

"Of course! I mean, I wondered what they were doing, putting something dangerous like that in a school, unless there was a real reason to keep it here. But it makes sense, really, if one of the Founders was the one who created it, or if she was its last owner. And, of course, Voldemort had obviously seen it before when he and Quirrell found it, since you told us that he knew how it worked well enough to know exactly how to get the Stone out of it."

And he had, in fact, been rather emphatic when ordering Quirrell not to break it, as if it was important. It was certainly capable of hiding items, as Harry had found out in his first year. It all seemed to fit. Harry's mind drifted towards the letter Regulus had left. He'd given Harry all the clues, including that he'd got the idea of that very specific spell on the parchment from a powerful item at Hogwarts, yet Harry had missed the obvious truth.

"I don't know where it is, anymore, though," Harry groaned. "Dumbledore may have moved it from the end of that obstacle course we were led through to get to the stone."

"It'd be a pretty good place to start though, right?" Ron said. "It's not like it would take long to check, since they'll have dismantled the protections by now."

Harry nodded, climbing up and moving towards the door. Hermione stopped him.

"It's nearly dinner time, Harry. Take a break and have something to eat. You look like you haven't had sleep or food for a week."

Harry tried to argue, but he could see that Hermione wasn't going to relent without a good reason. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the dog licking his chops at the mention of food. His own stomach growled.

Harry sighed. "Fine. We'll grab something that we can eat on the way. We don't have time to mess around."

Harry and the dog started towards the door simultaneous. Harry scratched it behind the ears as he opened the door and left.

"Someday," Ron muttered, "he's going to tell us how on earth he managed to adopt a dog in the first place."

* * *

Looking down through the trap door that led towards where he'd had his first face-off with Voldemort – the first that he could properly remember, at least – Harry grimaced.

"I feel like I'm right back in the beginning, being here again. It's as if we haven't progressed at all since first year."

Hermione frowned, "Well, of course we have. Think of all the magic we've learned, all the things we've done."

Harry shrugged. "Yeah, but not everything is about knowledge. I'm still no further along in defeating Voldemort than I was then, and that's the real test of how far along I've gotten, really, isn't it?"

"Well," Hermione huffed indignantly, "in that case, nothing else that anyone in the wizarding world has done has been worthwhile, or will ever be worthwhile in the future, because only _you_ can defeat Voldemort. Is that right? Do you think that Ron and I aren't worthwhile, either?"

Harry looked wide-eyed at Hermione, not immediately sure what he should say. He'd never really got the hang of what did and didn't set girls off. Eventually, he burst out with, "Of course not! Everyone else has other things that their lives are meant for, don't they? Mine's just _this_, unfortunately. I mean, do you really think I'm going to outlive Voldemort."

Hermione's eyes softened slightly. "Harry..." she began, sounding pitying.

Harry shook his head abruptly, changing the topic by saying, "Me first again, I suppose," as he gazed down the hole. "We'd better be careful, though. There won't be a soft landing this time." He looked at the dog. "Go up to Gryffindor Tower and wait outside the portrait. Someone who saw you with me earlier will eventually let you inside. Wait for me there," he told it.

"You think he'll actually understand that?" Ron asked. "And how would it know where Gryffindor is?"

The dog snorted at him and walked off, as if to prove just how well he understood.

Harry smiled. "I'd be dumbstruck if he couldn't manage, actually."

The landing was indeed anything but soft. Harry fell onto his feet, but his legs gave out and the second part of his landing involved a close encounter between his tailbone and the stone floor."

"Ow!" Ron echoed his sentiments precisely.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. Hermione dropped down after Ron with only a muffled and undistinguishable noise as she impacted the ground. She, the only person in the group who didn't play Quidditch, was apparently the only one co-ordinated enough to stay on her feet, Harry mused silently.

"Come on," Harry said. "We have to get moving."

The passage was a lot more pleasant when they weren't stopped every few feet by another roadblock. There was no Devil's Snare. Flying keys still drifted about near the ceiling, but though the door was closed to them, it was unlocked this time around, so they didn't need them. No chess pieces moved to stop their progress, though the table and pieces still sat lifelessly in the shadows. The following room still smelt vaguely of troll, which Harry blamed on the lack of air circulation in the area, but there was no actual troll to be found. The next room, however, still contained a table on which sat a group of potions.

"I guess they left them behind, as well," Hermione said softly.

They weren't the only thing that had been left behind. As soon as they were in the room, flames shot up on either side of them.

"You've got to be kidding me," Harry groaned.

Ron looked around interestedly. "Snape's managed to be an insufferable bastard twice over using the exact same trick. Imagine that."

Harry plaintively agreed. "I'm going to have to go on alone." He turned and looked at Hermione. "So, do you still think we've progressed since first year?"

Hermione gave him a small smile of encouragement. "Well, _we_ have. I don't know about some others I could mention. Hang on while I make sure the riddle hasn't changed."

When Hermione was satisfied that the logic puzzle was the same, Harry took the smallest bottle and went to gulp it down, but stopped.

"Couldn't you both go out and then come back in a minute. I mean, obviously the tasks reset themselves once someone passes through, or Quirrell would have given us a free walk through the first time around. Only that troll was still affected by Quirrell passing it."

Hermione shook her head. "I don't think it works that way. I don't think the same person can face the same task twice, especially not straight after they've failed to pass through it."

Harry looked pointedly around the room. "Well then, why is this task here? We've faced it already."

"But I haven't," Ron interjected. "Maybe not all of the other traps have been dismantled either. The chess board was still there, wasn't it? And so was the room of keys. But because all three of us have already proved ourselves, maybe the magic recognises us and lets us pass. I mean, they had to get rid of the more dangerous tests. How long can a school safely house three-headed dogs, entire rooms full of Devil's Snare and enormous trolls? especially with the Ministry watching Dumbledore so closely lately. But the rest of the tests are only dangerous if you actually try to pass through. They aren't exactly likely to break out and attack students. Snape's was the only test they left here that I hadn't faced, so I had to prove myself to it."

Hermione nodded. "Well, that would explain how Dumbledore managed to get to Harry and out again so quickly. I thought that it must have been because he was Headmaster, or because he put the whole thing together. This really does make more sense, though. Of course he would have faced all of the tasks. He had to test them, after all."

Harry sighed. "Look, it doesn't matter. Obviously we'll have to face Snape's task, regardless of why. So I'll see you both back out there."

Harry downed the potion, leaving his friends to split the round bottle, and passed through the wall of fire with nothing worse than a tingle.

"Bloody Snape," he muttered.

But as Harry went to stand near the Mirror of Erised – which was, in fact, still exactly where it had sat five years before – Harry decided that it was probably better that his friends weren't here after all. They were only going to keep accepting 'I can't tell you' for so long, especially if they saw him not even _attempting_ to destroy the Horcruxes. They would want an explanation that he couldn't have given even if he wasn't being silenced by the Vow.

Harry circled the mirror, gazing at it speculatively. There it was. Small enough for anyone who didn't know exactly what they should be looking for to mistake for an entirely different sort of pattern, there was a continuous line of very small, very thin eagle-shaped carvings tracing the frame the whole way around. They were clearly identifiable as Ravenclaw's sign of ownership. Harry had always been too interested in what the mirror showed, as well as the much larger words that also were carved on the frame, to pay much attention to anything that tiny and intricate.

Harry moved to stand in front of the mirror. One day, when Voldemort was defeated, he wouldn't have minded standing in front of this mirror and seeing how his deepest desires had changed since he was eleven. Did he still crave family quite so much, now that he'd had a taste of it with the Weasleys? Or would it show him dreams and ambitions for the future? Now was hardly the time to speculate, he supposed. And if it turned out to be a Horcrux in itself, he'd be too busy breaking it to bother with anything as insignificant as finding how what his heart's desire was.

"Who's the most idiotic of them all?" Harry muttered, looking into the mirror.

The mirror, of course, was more interested in answering the unasked question of what his deepest desire happened to be at that moment. Harry was surprised to see himself holding up two things instead of the expected one. The first was Slytherin's locket, dangling from his right hand. The other was some kind of goblet or cup, which his other hand was holding by one of its large handles. It looked to be as antique as the locket, and possibly made of gold. The mirror Harry looked somewhat expectantly at it and raised it toward him, as if to give him a closer look, or perhaps to toast him. The light caught on the engraving of an animal, a badger."

"Hufflepuff's cup," Harry breathed. "Don't tell me they're both in the mirror?"

There was no reply, either in sound or in Harry receiving either of the two Horcruxes. The mirror version of himself reached his hand up and dropped the locket in the cup, looking pointedly in Harry's direction.

"But I don't have the cup," Harry fumed quietly. "It doesn't help me to have the locket put in the cup if I don't have the cup." Harry shook his head in annoyance. Then it dawned on him finally. "Oh, I need the cup. I can't get the locket unless I bring the cup with me."

He contemplated banging his head against the mirror. What, did he have to find every other Horcrux Voldemort had before he could get to the one he actually needed?

Despite finding two of the remaining four Horcruxes, it was with a heavy heart that Harry returned to his friends. He didn't quite understand how the fire had disappeared and let him through again, since he hadn't been conscious for that last time it had happened either, but he hardly had time to question it. He had a whole new Horcrux to find, after all, and no clues at all this time as to its location.

He had to go see a man about a Horcrux, he supposed.


	5. Chapter 5

******CHAPTER FIVE**

"I need more time," Harry announced when he arrived back at the cave in the cliff.

Lucius himself was there. Harry assumed that he didn't stay there twenty-four hours a day and that it was chance that had found him in particular there both times that Harry had visited. He was accompanied for the moment by Rookwood. Dumbledore was still across the lake. Harry could see his profile moving slightly in the green glow. He breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't too late yet. There was still a chance that he could do this.

"And why should I give you that?" Lucius asked with a smirk.

Harry might not have wanted to spend any more time than necessary in this cave, but he had to admit that the fact that he could actually _talk_ openly about the Horcruxes there was a relief of sorts.

"I can't get to Slytherin's locket until I find Hufflepuff's cup. That's two Horcruxes, when the deal we agreed on was for one. Since the deal was misleading, I need more time. I need you to give Dumbledore to me now, so that I can get him to the Healers. I'm still under a Vow to get your Horcrux to you, so it can hardly make a difference now."

Lucius shook his head. "It would make a lot of difference. I didn't specifically set a time limit by which you had to bring the locket only because there _is_ already effectively a time limit in the form of his looming death," Lucius said, gesturing towards where Harry could just make out that Dumbledore was lying bound and unconscious. "After he's dead, or if he's freed, I imagine that you'll find some way out of doing your job. Don't be foolish, Potter. I refuse to be."

Harry gritted his teeth. "Fine. So tell me where Hufflepuff's cup is so I can get back here in time to save him and be bothered to give you what you want. It's a mutually advantageous deal; tell Voldemort _that_."

Lucius laughed. "Dear Mr Potter, I do believe you're being rude. Let me make your position clear to you. You should be being as sycophantic as possible towards me right now. Do you know why?"

"I'm sure you're going to tell me," Harry grumbled.

"Yes, Potter, I am. The reason is because it was never required in the Vow I made that I release your Headmaster when you delivered the Horcrux."

Rookwood laughed uproariously in the background, but Harry barely heard it for the ringing in his ears.

"What?" Harry whispered. "I did! You're lying."

"Why would I lie? The Vow would hold me to the statement even if I claimed I never made it. I'm not prepared to die just to keep your Headmaster away from you."

"But –"

"No, Potter," Lucius continued. "The only thing you made me Vow was that no one would further injure Dumbledore while he remained here. I daresay you were thinking so hard on how to carefully word that that you forgot the main issue. Isn't that right?"

Harry shook his head in denial, though he knew perfectly well that Lucius was right. He hadn't really thought about it, and so probably hadn't asked it of Lucius. He certainly couldn't _remember_ asking it.

"Shit."

Lucius chuckled. "Indeed. But if you hurry up and find the Horcrux, and act a little more reverently toward me, I may be in a good enough mood to let you take him off my hands. I really have no need for an old and dying man, anyway."

Harry would have liked to curse at Lucius. He wanted to call him every disgusting name he had learned from both wizards and Muggles alike. He didn't dare, though.

"So am I going to be told where the cup is… sir?"

Harry had never realised that saying one word could hurt a person's pride quite so much.

Lucius smirked. "Oh, I like that. Next time maybe you should call me 'Master'. Keep it up, Potter; you'll make a fine lapdog. But no. You'll have to find it yourself."

Harry clenched his eyes shut to keep from screaming. When he opened them, Lucius was looking speculatively at him.

"If I agree to deliver Slytherin's locket here within twenty-four hours of laying hands on it, regardless of whether Dumbledore's still alive at the time, will you vow to release him to me upon receipt of the Horcrux and let us get to Hogwarts safely?" Harry asked.

Lucius tilted his head. "I will, on one further condition; that you'll bring Hufflepuff's cup and present it to the Death Eater stationed here along with the locket when you come."

Harry hadn't even thought of that. He really wasn't very good at this Unbreakable Vow thing. "Then you'll tell me where it is? There's no point in you not doing so if you're going to get it back anyway."

Lucius smiled. "I'll tell you what, Potter. After we've exchanged Vows, I'll give you a hint as to where it is."

And so it was that Harry was kneeling before Lucius again, with Rookwood ready to bind him.

"You first," Harry ordered.

Lucius smirked. "You are, by turns, too suspicious and not suspicious enough, Potter. You should really make up your mind."

"Lucius Malfoy, will you vow, on behalf of yourself and all others affiliated with Lord Voldemort, to release Albus Dumbledore to me and let us safely travel to either Hogwarts or St Mungo's immediately once I bring Slytherin's locket and Hufflepuff's cup to this cave and give them to one of Voldemort's Death Eaters?"

"I will."

Harry nodded as a rope of fire twirled around their joined hands.

"Harry Potter, will you vow to bring both Slytherin's locket and Hufflepuff's cup, both of which being the Dark Lord's Horcruxes, to this cave and give them to one of Voldemort's followers within two hours of gaining possession of Slytherin's locket, and within a week's time after making this vow?"

Two hours? He'd said twenty-four! What if he got delayed somehow? And what if he couldn't find the thing in a week? But then, it would hardly matter a week from then, because Dumbledore likely wouldn't survive that long. Harry shot Lucius an angry look, but nodded anyway.

This might be the stupidest thing Harry had ever done, which really meant something in the context of his long line of past idiocy.

"I will. You bastard," Harry said.

Their hands broke apart a few moments later.

"You'd better hope that I make it here in time," Harry said. "Your master will never get either of the Horcruxes back if I suddenly drop dead in the middle of the ocean because I accidentally went over time and broke my Vow."

Lucius looked amused. "I have _faith_ in you, Potter," he sneered.

Harry scowled. "What's my hint? And how do _you_ know it, anyway?"

"The Dark Lord has given me a small amount of information about each of his Horcruxes, believe it or not. Did you want to hear the clue, or not?"

Harry nodded grudgingly.

"It is that the cup resides somewhere that the Dark Lord can guarantee that you've never visited and will never desire to visit."

Harry knew that his face must look baffled. "That's it? That could be anywhere!"

Lucius shrugged. "That's all you'll get from me, Potter. Use that lump of grey matter that masquerades as a brain, regardless of all the evidence to the contrary."

Harry grunted noncommittally and stalked out. "One of these days, I'm going to watch you be put in as much pain as Dumbledore is in now," Harry called back over his shoulder. "And I'll enjoy every minute of it."

Rookwood laughed. Lucius, though Harry wasn't looking at him, most likely scowled, because his voice was deathly dark when Harry cut his hand and stepped out of the cave. "Careful, Potter. You wouldn't want to become Dark after all the work you've done against us. You wouldn't be well received."

Harry ignored him.

* * *

"What're you on about?" Ron scoffed. "Are you ever going to explain _any_ of this?"

Harry couldn't really blame him. He couldn't, after all, explain the reason he was asking them to come up with places he'd never been and wouldn't want to go. Talking about what had happened in the cave would break the Vow. _One_ of the Vows, now. How had Harry got himself into this?

"Ron," Hermione sighed. "_You're_ not being particularly helpful now, either."

They were back in the Room of Requirement. Ron and Hermione had been bursting at the seams wanting to know what had happened with the Mirror of Erised, but he couldn't tell them that, either.

"Besides," Hermione said, "it's pretty obvious what this is about. One of the Horcruxes is in this mystery place."

Harry couldn't verbally agree. He didn't even want to take the chance of doing so non-verbally, just in case. However, he'd really appreciate the opportunity to jump up and down screaming 'yes' and hugging her for her brilliance.

"Since the clue isn't exactly definitive," Hermione continued, "let's think about where V-Voldemort might put one of his Horcruxes, just in general. It'd have to mean something to him. Something that reminds him of his heritage or past, perhaps, like the Mirror of Erised, or the other Horcruxes Harry's told us about. A place that's significant to You-Know-Who because of his history, or because it shows his power, or maybe something else. Maybe an aspiration? Somewhere he _wants_ to have power over."

Harry nodded, carefully phrasing his words. "He thinks ahead, and plans his moves in advance. He would leave one in a place like that because, of course, one day it will simply join the other locations as a show of his power, that he owns that place. But where? Hogwarts?"

Ron shook his head. "You have to have never been there, remember? I'd say the Ministry. You'll probably never desire to go there. Even if you end up working there, who doesn't dread going to work in the morning?"

"Lots of people, Ron," Hermione sighed, shaking her head as if she couldn't believe that Ron could be so foolish sometimes. "You should know that, since your own father loves his job, most of the time. But I suppose it could be assumed otherwise, since everyone knows that Harry isn't always on the best terms with the Ministry."

"Yeah, maybe," Harry agreed. "So, anything else?"

No answer was forthcoming. Hermione was frowning in concentration. Harry knew how she felt. They were working with an assumption that could very well prove false, and still couldn't come up with more than one idea. An idea that would be almost impossible to check out, considering how large the Ministry was.

"I think you need more opinions," Hermione said at last. "You should ask people who know a bit more about the world and have different perspectives, if nothing else."

Harry frowned. "Like who?"

"The Order," Ron said immediately. "My parents could get a meeting set up."

Harry's frown deepened. "It's a bit urgent for that."

Hermione shrugged this excuse off. "They have emergency meetings all the time. If we can get into the Headmaster's office, we can Floo to the Burrow; his is the only Floo in the school that allows actual travel and not just communication. We can go straight to the Headquarters from there, once Ron's parents get word out. Most of them should be well and truly home from work by this hour."

Harry could see a lot of problems with this idea. However, he had none that were any better himself, so he conceded.

* * *

"This had better be good," Mad-Eye Moody grumbled as he entered the warehouse. He was one of the last people to have been contacted, so there were very few Order members still to arrive.

Hermione was onto something here, Harry realised. It had been just shy of twenty minutes since Harry had finally guessed the right password to Dumbledore's office, and already here was a room full of people who knew better than anyone except perhaps the Death Eaters what Voldemort was thinking, because it was their job to find out so that they could work against him. Surely they could help. If nothing else, at least some of them were employed by the Ministry and could help him search there.

"I thought he was dead," Ron muttered dejectedly. "He's been missing since the Death Eaters came to Hogwarts. I thought maybe they just hushed his murder up."

Harry followed his gaze and saw a disgruntled Snape sweeping through the door. Of course! He'd forgotten Snape. Snape might actually know the location of the Horcrux, if they were lucky. If not, at least he could explain the situation to the others, so that they knew what on earth was going on. Harry was fairly certain that Ron and Hermione would be quite relieved to finally be in the know.

"Potter," Snape snapped, not even slowly down as he grabbed Harry's sleeve and yanked him. "A word in private."

Accompanied by the other Order member's audible complaints about Snape's treatment of him, Harry was steered forcibly off to one of the untouched rooms. Snape cast an Imperturbable Charm on the room, then spun around and practically pinned Harry to the wall.

"There are, at most, only four people in this god-forsaken building who know of the existence of Horcruxes. You and I are two of them. I assume Weasley and Granger know also. All other individuals are ignorant, and should remain so. If you wish to tell them about Dumbledore's capture, you will let me do the talking. You will have to anyway, I surmise, in order to keep yourself alive. If you want to implore them for ideas regarding Hufflepuff's cup, I advise you not to tell them why you are looking for it, other than that it is needed to save Dumbledore – though, of course, I will tell them that, because as much as I think I'd enjoy your death, I will not allow it to happen before you do your part."

Harry was furious, but nodded in agreement. He was glad that Snape had thought about it, for Harry wouldn't like to go against Dumbledore's wishes. If the Headmaster hadn't told the whole Order already, they obviously weren't meant to know.

"Do you – damn, it's difficult not being able to properly talk about it. Do you know, er, the location?" Harry asked.

Snape looked wholly unimpressed, as if Harry had just said the stupidest thing he could possibly say.

"Of course I don't, Potter. Do you think that the Dark Lord trusts his servants with the location of parts of his own soul? With his immortality? I think not. I know exactly what Lucius knows, and that is that Hufflepuff's cup is, in actuality, a Horcrux, and that it is somewhere the Dark Lord believes you will never voluntarily go. If I didn't know that the Dark Lord didn't believe in the afterlife, I might have suggested hell. He'd certainly have a ticket in, if he so chose. But then, who of us wouldn't?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'd say you, but I'm generally against lying point-blank."

Snape sneered. "So am I, Potter, in all situations that don't involve maintaining my own livelihood. That is why you've never once heard a kind word from me."

"Bastard," Harry muttered as Snape stalked away.

When they arrived back in the main room, all eyes were on Harry. It was, however, Snape who spoke.

"Let's get explanations out of the road quickly, shall we? The Death Eaters have managed to capture and poison Headmaster Dumbledore and are holding him captive. Potter was stupid enough to make a number of Unbreakable Vows to Lucius Malfoy in order to secure the Headmaster's eventual freedom. Regardless, by the time Potter does what he has Vowed to do, the Headmaster will likely have already died. Nevertheless, since Potter is now under an obligation to take action, it's probably best that it is done now while he is still under the mistaken belief that there is a shred of hope."

The room was silent with shock for a long moment before erupting into noise.

"I did not offer to answer questions!" Snape yelled angrily over the top of them. The noise died down.

"One of Potter's Vows was, in fact, not to speak of his task until it is over. This, of course, explains why I appear to be coddling our boy hero by not allowing him to face your limitless questions. Luckily, we have a spy in our midst who can convey Potter's predicament to you all." Snape smirked self-importantly at this, and Harry snorted. He received a glare for his troubles.

"The Dark Lord, through Malfoy, has ordered Potter to track down an item of significance to him. For reasons which I refuse to disclose to you, because you do not have to know them, Potter is unable to secure this item without first having another item. It is the second item which he seeks now. It is Hufflepuff's cup; a goblet-like item made of gold and engraved with a picture of a badger. The only clue we have to its whereabouts is from the Dark Lord, again through Malfoy. This is that Potter has never been there, nor will he ever desire to go there. Since I'm rather exhausted from spending the last few days maintaining the boy's relative safety, and Potter himself is an idiot, application of fresh minds to the problem would be helpful. Any ideas you have as to the answer to this puzzle will not fall on deaf ears… unless they are unbearably stupid, of course. Remember, the faster we manage this, the sooner Dumbledore can receive attention, though probably not as much as he will ultimately need. And the less likely it will be that your boy hero will get himself killed within the very immediate future," he said almost as an unconnected afterthought.

Harry was impressed. If you took out all of the insults, that would actually probably be the most succinct version of his dilemma that would ever be uttered. Of course, he supposed that that was because nearly all of the information that was actually _important_ had been left out.

"Oh, Harry," Hermione finally piped up, her voice sounding shaky. "No wonder you couldn't tell us. How do you get yourself into these situations?"

Harry shrugged, his eyes trained on his feet. He wondered if she was crying, but didn't dare look up for fear of what sight would greet him.

"Um…" Ron started. "If it helps, I know slightly more than most of you do, though I don't think I can elaborate. The place is likely somewhere that would be important to Voldemort. Somewhere that symbolises something in his past, maybe, or proves his power. We thought maybe it could even somewhere he wants or expects to be in power over in the future, like the Ministry."

It was Moody who eventually said, "The only place to hide such an artefact would be in the Department of Mysteries; the Unspeakables rarely question what they find in there, since for secrecy's sake there is no single person in the department who has access to a list of every activity taking place in there."

"Is there anyone here who has access to the Department?" Harry asked, looking up but keeping his eyes averted away from Hermione, just in case.

Moody laughed. "Any person in the wizarding world can get into the department if they chose the right time of day – or, rather, night. The problem is, of course, knowing how to navigate the place. I'm certainly not well-versed in doing so."

"Nor I," Mr Weasley admitted.

Kingsley cut in, "I'm on friendly terms with one or two of the Unspeakables. If I can persuade them, we may have an escort. They may even have seen something and not realised its significance."

"Right," Harry nodded. "So, it's probably best to send only Ministry employees, so that your presence at the Ministry in general, at least, is less questionable. Who does that give us?"

There were six in all – seven if you counted Moody, but he was no longer an official employee, and he wasn't exactly inconspicuous – and Harry felt rather over-important ordering them off to the Ministry to begin the search. They were all about twice his age or even a good deal more than that. However, it had to be done. Now was not the time to get squeamish about taking charge.

Harry addressed the rest of the Order, who remained behind.

"Are there any other ideas regarding the location?"

A man Harry knew as Remus Lupin, who'd been part of the guard who escorted him to the Weasleys the summer before last, spoke up.

"Ron's – can I call you Ron? Right. Ron's idea is certainly sound. One would automatically think of Hogwarts, but Harry has, of course, set foot there a number of times over the years. There is always the Order itself."

Harry shook his head. "I searched the Headquarters up and down. There's nothing here."

Lupin smiled indulgently. "That's all well and good, Harry. However, I wasn't referring to _this_ Headquarters. Lord Voldemort," he began amidst a room full of flinches – Harry privately decided that he liked the man solely based on his use of Voldemort's name, "doesn't know the location of this Headquarters, after all, nor could he get inside. However, there was a reason we could not use our last location. It was found by Death Eaters and we were driven out not long after you were born, Harry. We didn't start using the Fidelius Charm until after that."

Harry hadn't thought about that possibility. "How big is the place?"

"Not overly," Lupin replied. "I'd say two or three people could scour it within a minimal amount of time while still being as thorough as possible."

Harry nodded. "Right then. We'll go with three to be safe. Who's familiar with the layout of the place?"

About half of the hands in the room went up.

"Right then, you three," Harry pointed. They all rose and left the room. Harry was happy that he'd heard not a single complaint or grumble about his assumed role of leadership or the way he was handling things. He supposed that it might be because he was one of the only people with all the information, so they didn't feel they could second-guess him using what little they knew.

"Also, just to be safe, I want you, Moody, to go through this building in case I missed anything. You might pick up a thing or two with your eye that mine wouldn't have seen."

Moody nodded curtly at Harry and seemed to drift off in his seat, one bright blue eye swivelling madly, presumably peering through walls and other surfaces in search of anything unusual. The table was now only about half full.

"So, any other ideas?"

"Maybe," Bill Weasley said, "it'd be best if you gave us some idea about what made you think You-Know-Who would choose the kind of place you're talking about. Nothing specific if you can't, of course."

Harry sighed. "There are other items in places like his mother's home, a place he associated with the orphanage he grew up in, and Hogwarts, among others. All of these places have specific significance to him. It is likely that trend will continue."

"So, they're all places he's visited?" Lupin asked.

Harry frowned. "Well, yeah. He has to put them there."

Lupin smiled disarmingly. "You misunderstand. I meant that they are places that he would have a purpose in visiting, other than to place the items there. He wouldn't, therefore, pick a place that he identified in some way with, but had no actual connection with because he'd never been there."

Harry shrugged. "No. I guess not. It's hard to be sure."

"Let's work with that premise though, just for a moment. When would he have placed these objects?"

"Probably around the time or slightly before I was born."

"So, somewhere he had an interest in during his first term in power, and that you've never visited and wouldn't _want_ to visit, but not necessarily somewhere you never _will_ visit."

"Yeah," Harry said, "that just about sums it up."

Mrs Weasley butted in. "There are so many places in the world that Harry would never want to go that You-Know-Who's already been. To think that we could ever –"

The door burst open and McGonagall, who had elected to stay at the school for safety reasons instead of attend the meeting, stormed in.

"Headmaster Dumbledore has arrived in the Hogwarts hospital wing. Poppy was organising emergency transport to St Mungo's when I left, so he should be there momentarily."

Every person in the room seemed to shoot to their feet all at once.

"Is he all right?" Hermione asked.

McGonagall ignored her in favour of continuing on her own track. "He wasn't quite all there, of course, but we managed to decipher that he wanted to see Potter and Professor Snape particularly, and in that order. If you would come with me, gentlemen?"

It was the first time all night that people seemed to be genuinely upset with Harry. They could have chosen something that was his fault; the fact that Dumbledore had been poisoned and held prisoner by Death Eaters seemed like an obvious option. Instead, they focused on Dumbledore wanting to see him before them, something he had absolutely no control over. Harry sometimes questioned how the human brain worked.

McGonagall led them to the Apparition point. She was the first to go. Harry was about to Disapparate when Snape said his name, halting his actions.

"Potter, you know that I don't give a damn about your good opinion. I would prefer you to hate me. However, the truth of the matter is that you _need_ to trust me. You will not survive the Dark Lord without having someone in a position where they can find out his inner workings."

Snape went to turn on his heel and disappear, but then seemed to think better of it and glared at Harry once more.

"You are not the only person in the wizarding world who has ever had to make a vow he didn't wish to uphold."

Then Snape Disapparated.

What... the hell? Harry decided he definitely didn't understand people, _especially_ Snape.

* * *

It took longer than Harry thought it should have to persuade the Healers to allow Harry in to see Dumbledore. Ultimately, though, they could not ignore Dumbledore's repeated orders that Harry see him immediately, and alone. Half of the Order stood around in the waiting area in the ward of St Mungo's where Dumbledore was supposedly being cared for. It may have been Harry's imagination, but Snape seemed to be the only one among them who wasn't exhibiting some detectable, if small, trace of resentment towards him for being allowed past the veritable barricade of Healers who stood between them and the Headmaster.

Harry wasn't sure what he was expecting when he was escorted into Dumbledore's private room. He'd seen how Dumbledore looked when he left him in that cave. Intellectually, he knew the Headmaster couldn't have improved in condition, and was in fact likely to have worsened over the time that had passed since he'd been poisoned. Somehow, though, none of that had prepared Harry for the sight of his mentor looking paler than Harry thought he'd ever seen anyone, lying helpless and sickly on a hospital bed.

Perhaps it all seemed worse seen under lights stronger than that dim glow of the cave, but Harry had the sudden sinking feeling that Snape had been right. It would likely have been more humane, and perhaps more sensible as well, to have finished what the poison had started and made a run for it. Certainly, he should never have gone back and further risked his life to secure the freedom of a man that looked as if his chest shouldn't still be rising and falling, as shallow as that involuntary motion actually was. Dumbledore wouldn't have wanted that, surely.

There was hope in the fact that Dumbledore's eyes swivelled towards him and recognition flashed through them, though. It was for that hope that Harry knew he'd risked himself. He wasn't like Snape. He couldn't give up when there was even the slightest possibility that he could help. Yes, Hermione had been right all along. He had a complex about rescuing people. However, he hated to think what kind of person he would be if he _didn't_ want to rescue this man who had done so much for him and for the wizarding world as a whole.

He certainly wouldn't have been the kind of person who kneeled by Headmaster Dumbledore's bed and grasped his non-blackened hand in what he hoped was a comforting way, not expecting any reward for his actions. He was pleasantly surprised when his doing so prompted his name, spoken in a rasp, to spill from Dumbledore's lips.

"Headmaster?"

"Harry. My dear boy."

It was said in such a forlorn tone that Harry's voice caught deep in his throat.

"I'm here, Headmaster," he pushed past the lump that had formed.

Dumbledore smiled weakly. "Yes. I expected you might come. You worked…" and here Dumbledore paused to draw in an almost rattling breath "… far too hard to save me to give up on me now."

"I'm sorry. I couldn't –"

"None of that now," Dumbledore admonished. He gave Harry a look that was reassuring even as it made him scared for Dumbledore's condition. "I would have expected nothing more... or less of you than what you did. I'm… proud of you."

Harry nodded, biting back a harsh sob that seemed desperate to escape. Dumbledore was proud of him. As if to justify that, Harry began, "I found..." then grimaced, realising he'd likely be breaking his Vow by mentioning the two Horcruxes. "I can't even tell you. Stupid Vow. Maybe Snape will tell you when you see him. But I did do _something_ good."

Dumbledore nodded almost imperceptibly. "I'm certain you did."

"Headmaster, I don't... I _think_ I can say this. I don't know how to destroy the Horcruxes, once I can."

"Ah," Dumbledore sighed. "That is something that I cannot… tell you. It is different for each… The diary was able to be destroyed physically, while the ring required… a powerful spell that caused tremendous backlash that… has been slowly draining my strength all this year. I'm afraid... you will have to figure it out yourself. I trust… that you will know what... to do, when the time comes."

Harry shook his head. "I don't think I will. And I can't even ask anyone for help. The only other person who knows of the Horcruxes is Snape, and I get the feeling that he's planning something," Harry said, feeling stupid for having voiced that thought even as Dumbledore responded.

"Even so, Harry, you can trust him."

Harry groaned at the oft repeated sentiment. "I wish you would tell me what makes you so sure."

"You will just have... to trust me as well."

"I do. I –"

Harry was cut off by Dumbledore suddenly collapsing into a coughing fit. Healers rushed in from all sides, but Dumbledore seemed to gather all of his strength together for the simple act of shrugging them off.

"I need to see Severus Snape. Right now," he argued with the nearest one who was trying to talk him into taking some kind of sleeping potion.

"I'll get him, sir," Harry promised, fleeing from the room. He called out to Snape, and told the Healers who had remained outside the room that Dumbledore wanted to see him now. Snape broke through the crowd of people and entered the room. Seconds later, the swarm of Healers who had invaded the room were kicked out. They looked extremely disgruntled about it, too.

Snape was alone in the room with Dumbledore for what seemed like less than a minute. When he emerged, he glared at the Healers and then stormed away. Harry noticed that as he left, he grabbed Remus Lupin by his creased robe and pulled the other man away with him. Harry was surprised by this; he'd got the impression from watching them that the two men deeply disliked each other.

However, he was soon distracted from that train of thought by an alarmed cry from Dumbledore's room. Moments later, some kind of magically-enhanced siren was screeching through the air, and what seemed to be security personnel were being informed to track down Severus Snape.

Nothing more was said, but Harry could think of only one reason why the hospital would be put on full alert like that. His heart seemed to still in his chest and time stretched longer than it should as his feet carried him towards the room Snape had just come from. The Healers tried to stop him, but whether it was because they hadn't expected him or because pure adrenaline had given him a sudden burst of strength, he was able to break through into Dumbledore's room.

If he'd felt confronted by the sight that met him the first time he'd entered that room, Harry discovered that it was nothing to how he felt just then. Yet, somehow, for all that his brain wanted to refuse to believe what his eyes were seeing, he wasn't at all surprised at the reality.

Dumbledore lay exactly as Harry, and Snape after him, had left him. Now, though, he was entirely still. The slight movement in his chest that had comforted Harry even as its lack of strength had worried him was entirely missing. Harry's brain seemed to finally catch up to the action and realise just what he was looking at.

Dumbledore was dead.

Snape had killed Dumbledore.

Harry had _let_ Snape murder Dumbledore.

Harry felt numb inside.

And now Snape had gone. He'd escaped out of the building. That thought kick-started his brain back into action… into anger. Harry had to get to him – to make him explain and to punish him if necessary – before he got away. Harry turned on his heel, bowling through the crowd amidst alarmed shouts of his name. He sprinted down three flights of stairs, unwilling to wait for the lift, and finally emerged out onto the Muggle street outside the hospital to find a group of what seemed to be Aurors already there. They were questioning Lupin, who was no longer accompanied by Snape. Harry cursed, bringing their attention to him.

"Harry!" Lupin called out.

"Where is he?" Harry demanded. "Where's Snape?"

"I was just telling the Aurors, he spoke to me for a moment, and then took off down the street. He'll have Apparated by now, I'd say. I don't understand what's going on."

Harry took in Lupin's stunned face and slightly worried eyes. He deserved to know.

"He killed Dumbledore," Harry replied. He was surprised by how emotionless his voice suddenly was. It was as if the knowledge the Dumbledore's murderer had escaped back to his true master had sucked all the enraged wind out of Harry's sails, to use a Muggle metaphor.

"What? No, he couldn't have."

Harry just looked at Lupin for a moment. Until a week or so ago, Harry might have had the same reaction. Even though he hated Snape, he never would have believed that Snape could have killed the Headmaster who'd protected him from being imprisoned for being a Death Eater. However, being advised by Snape that he should have put Dumbledore out of his misery had shed a whole new light on the man.

Then Harry laughed. He was as shocked as Lupin looked, but once it started it wouldn't stopped. He spared a thought to consider that he might be hysterical.

"Oh, he could have," Harry disagreed when he calmed his manic laughter enough to speak again, "I saw the evidence with my own eyes. Dumbledore is dead, and was killed by the Killing Curse. Snape was alone with him just moments before. Snape has now run away. I think it's fairly self-evident that he could kill Dumbledore, and that he did."

"Harry, I still don't understand. What just happened in there?"

Harry shook his head. "There's a whole hospital full of witnesses in there. Ask them. Right now, I need to… get out of here. I'm leaving."

Leaving Lupin gaping at him, Harry fled down the street in the same direction to which the older man had indicated that Snape had run off. The ominous echo of his heels hitting the pavement seemed to follow him down the street.


	6. Chapter 6

**********CHAPTER SIX**

Harry decided over the course of the next three days that the stray dog he'd picked up must have been the smartest dog to ever exist. That, or it really was an Animagus after all. Frankly, Harry couldn't bring himself to care. It wasn't as if it had tried to hurt him, and he wasn't sure right then that he wouldn't welcome it if it did.

The animal somehow managed to assist him in packing his trunk when he arrived back at Gryffindor Tower. He felt like a blind man as it led him mostly unawares through a crowd of students out to the Apparition line. It gave him something to focus on so that he didn't splinch himself when he Apparated to the alley on Grimmauld Place. If it hadn't been for the dog, Harry didn't think that he would have even eaten over the next few days, which he spent at the Black house, though later he was a bit vague on the details regarding how the dog managed to prepare food and bring it to him. All he really remembered of that time was lying around in bed in the room that had once belonged to Regulus Black, with the dog curled around his body, its weight against him comforting and warm.

He didn't know what had driven him to pack up his things and leave school. Even more unexplainable was the fact that he'd gone directly to the house of the man who had inadvertently caused the mess that his life had become and actually decided to stay in his room, of all the places he could have slept. Had it not been for Regulus Black, Voldemort would likely have left his locket where it was, unguarded, and then Harry and Dumbledore may not have gone to that cave for no real reason, only to be caught in a trap.

It seemed so stupid, upon reflection. They needn't ever have gone. They'd put themselves in danger for something that they'd never had any chance of laying hands on, since it wasn't actually there anymore. Dumbledore had allowed himself to be poisoned and eventually been killed, all because of that stupid locket, and because Harry wasn't good enough to save him.

It was a shock to Harry's perception of life, that Dumbledore was fallible like that. The man had had his faults, sure, but Harry had never imagined that his weaknesses might extend to the physical aspect of his life. Somehow it had never seemed obvious that he was actually extremely old, except for those moments in which some people might wonder whether he was actually senile, but Harry had known better.

Harry had fully expected Dumbledore to outlive him, even if he somehow managed to kill Voldemort before he was killed by him. And if he had to be around for Dumbledore's death, if he'd given thought to it he imagined he would have expected it to be in some fight to the death with Voldemort, at the very least. Not at _Snape's_ hand, when he'd already been on his deathbed.

After two days of lying around, simply going from denying that it had happened, to being outraged at Snape, to blaming himself and becoming absolutely debilitated by guilt and grief combined, Harry gathered himself together enough to wonder what Dumbledore's death meant for the immediate future.

He had a little over four days to find Hufflepuff's cup, use it to get Slytherin's locket out of the mirror and then deliver the locket to Lucius or whatever evil minion was waiting in that cave for his arrival. Since he still had absolutely no idea as to where he should start looking for the cup, it was an impossible task. Harry didn't like to give up, but now that the constant push for action prompted by Dumbledore still being in danger was gone, all Harry had to motivate himself was the consideration of his own life. It didn't seem as important, somehow, even though part of Harry wanted to smack himself for thinking that.

It was something of a relief when an owl arrived with a message from McGonagall. _Headmistress_ McGonagall, in fact, as the signature proclaimed. The sight of that word in front of her name really brought home the fact that the Headmaster of Hogwarts was gone. Harry's stomach clenched almost painfully at the thought. Just when he thought he'd begun to come to terms with it…

Harry suspected the dog had somehow let the owl in, since it trotted into the room not two seconds after the owl swooped through the doorway. It had an expectant look on its face.

Harry, uncertain why he did so, read the letter aloud so that the dog could hear what it said. It was about Dumbledore's funeral, which was apparently being held the very next day. McGonagall said she thought he'd want to be there, though they'd all understand if he wasn't. Harry highly doubted that there wouldn't be some bitterness among students and members of the Order alike if he didn't show, but he appreciated the sentiment all the same.

There really wasn't even a decision to be made. Harry _had_ to go. He had to say goodbye to the man who'd seen him through so many trying years, even before he actually knew who Albus Dumbledore was. He expected that he'd have to put up with other people's blame on top of his own even if he showed up, though, so he decided that it would be best if he could stay out of everyone else's sight.

* * *

For about the thousandth time since learning he was a wizard, Harry thanked both the makers of invisibility cloaks for inventing them and his father for actually owning one. Though he was staying far enough away from the crowds of people at the memorial for them to find it difficult to see him anyway, the knowledge that, even if someone happened to look off exactly in his direction, they wouldn't be able to see him anyway was of some reassurance to him.

Considering the problems Dumbledore had had with the Ministry and most of the wizarding world only the year before, Harry was surprised at how many people had shown up to supposedly pay him their respects. Harry suspected that a good number of them were there to do nothing of the sort. Some people had a truly morbid sense of curiosity, and some were just there for show.

Harry couldn't seem to concentrate on what was happening down near the table where Dumbledore's body lay. All he could do was look at where the Headmaster lay, with the phrase 'Dumbledore's dead, he's really dead' repeating over and over in his head.

It took Harry a while to realise he wasn't quite alone. Standing just behind where he stood at the edge of the forest was a crowd of centaurs, watching the proceedings. Strangely, that was what made the tears that had been threatening for days like dark clouds that just wouldn't lift finally fall from Harry's eyes. The centaurs, apart from maybe Firenze, openly disliked humans in general, yet they had obviously thought Dumbledore great enough for them to honour his memory.

Harry was responsible for the death of one of the greatest wizards in recent history, if not ever. He was all alone in the world now, really. Dumbledore, his hero and protector, was dead because of him. Merlin, what had he done?

For all that he couldn't seem to concentrate, he could hardly ignore the flurry of activity that broke out all at once. Dumbledore's body seemed to spontaneously combust, white flames rising higher and higher into the air to form a tomb. Harry could no longer see Dumbledore's body. The lack of that devastating sight seemed to slightly lift a weight from his chest. Arrows fired over his head and Harry turned around just in time to see the centaurs retreat into the forest, having shown their regard for the fallen Headmaster of Hogwarts better than most of the so-called mourners attending could ever hope to.

"Harry, I know you're there."

Harry swivelled toward the voice, only to find that Remus Lupin had somehow snuck up in front of him while he was lost in thought. He was barely ten feet away. The older man glanced down at a piece of parchment that he was holding loosely in his hands, as if consulting it, then looked up in Harry's direction, his eyes focusing on a point just over Harry's left shoulder.

"You can take off that cloak. I need to talk to you. I'd prefer to be able to actually see you."

Harry, feeling stunned, emerged from under the cloak. Lupin nodded at him, as if in satisfaction that he was right.

"How do you know about my cloak?" Harry asked.

Lupin smiled grimly at him. "The same way that I recognised this map your friends Ron and Hermione were using to look out for you before the memorial service. They both, at some stage, at least partly belonged to your father."

Harry's eyes widened further when he saw that the parchment Lupin was holding was actually the map the Weasley twins had given him as a kind of counter-gift when he gave them his Triwizard Tournament earnings. But then, the rest of what Lupin had said seemed to sink into his brain. "You knew my father?" he queried.

"Better than most, yes. I went to school with your parents. We were all in the same year in Gryffindor."

Harry's chest felt even tighter then than it had already from the funeral. The only person he'd ever known that went to school with his parents was Snape, and he had hated them both.

"Why didn't you ever say anything?"

Lupin shook his head. "What would I have said? That you remind me so very much of your father? You've heard that often enough, I should think, and besides that, you're not so much like him that I'd want you to think I only saw him in you. Or maybe I could've said that I'm sorry that I was never there for you when you were younger? Harry, you have no idea how true that is, and you likely never will. I can't tell you the truth of the matter even now. Or should I have said that I was one of your father's best friends? My memories of him are too tainted to share with you, because I also was best friends with the man who betrayed you and your parents to Lord Voldemort."

Harry inhaled sharply. "Who?"

"Never you mind, Harry. You're happier not knowing. Besides, he's already received what he deserved."

Harry wasn't at all satisfied by this, but even though he didn't know the man well, he could tell by the closed off expression on his face that Harry would receive no more information from Lupin on that front. Besides, if it was as painful a memory as it sounded, he wasn't sure that he wanted to put the other man through recounting it. There would be some other way to find out, surely.

"Why did you come find me?" Harry finally asked, decisively changing the topic.

"I was worried about you. I heard you hadn't been seen, that you'd holed yourself up somewhere to mourn the Headmaster," Lupin paused, as if considering how best to proceed. "Harry, Snape told me you only had a week to find that cup you told the Order about. Have you even been looking?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know where to look."

Lupin suddenly seemed to grow angry, which was certainly a first as far as Harry had seen. "So, what, you're just going to wait to _die_?"

Harry's own hackles were quickly raised. "What else can I do?"

"You can help us help you, for starters, and not just give up all hope!"

"Who are you to tell me what to do?" Harry shouted back. The sound seemed to him to echo across the lake, and he was surprised that the crowd of people didn't suddenly rush over to him. "You may have known my father, but you're not him! I've seen you maybe five times in my entire life. Do you think that gives you the right to ask anything of me?"

Lupin recoiled as if stung by Harry's words, and for a moment Harry thought he might actually regret what he'd said. But then Lupin clenched his fists.

"For Merlin's sake, Harry, I'm trying to help you!"

"Well, you shouldn't!" Harry cried. "Not when every adult who's ever tried to help me has ended up dead!"

The whole grounds of the school, including the Forbidden Forest, seemed to fall into absolute silence in that moment as they regarded each other. Lupin's expression softened.

"Oh, Harry."

Harry stepped back from Lupin even before he moved forward, anticipating the attempt.

"Don't touch me. I… Merlin, I just can't."

Lupin stilled. They stood several feet apart, staring at each other. Harry's breath sounded ragged to his ears. He prayed to whatever deities would listen that he didn't start crying again. It wasn't really weak to cry for Dumbledore, surely, because the man had deserved Harry's tears and so much more. However, he refused to show such misery towards his own predicament. He wouldn't let anyone see him drowning in self-pity, whether he'd earned the right to do so or not.

"What would you have me do differently?" Harry eventually asked softly.

"Go to Azkaban."

Harry was stunned. He knew that he was partly responsible for Dumbledore's death, but surely they couldn't send him off to prison…

"No, Harry, that's not what I meant," Lupin quickly back-tracked when he saw what must have been an utterly distraught look on Harry's face. "After the meeting about the cup, it occurred to me that one of the places Voldemort is attempting to gain control of, before even Hogwarts or the Ministry, is Azkaban. Following your friend Ron's line of logic, Voldemort may have left the cup there."

"In a prison?" Harry asked, frowning. "Wouldn't someone have noticed something like that in there?"

"Azkaban is run entirely by Dementors. The only humans to set foot on the island are the prisoners, most of whom are insane, and the visitors, all of whom want to get in and out as quickly as possible and thus aren't likely to be paying particular attention to their surroundings. They wouldn't know what they were looking for, either."

Harry nodded slowly. "So we send the Order in and search. Today, if possible."

Lupin shook his head. "It's not that simple, unfortunately. There are human guards that monitor who can board the boats to the island. They are extremely strict about who is authorised to travel there. There is a limited list of sufficient reasons why a person could visit the prison. Ministry officials can go, if it involves something particular to their work that cannot otherwise be solved. Family members of the prisoners are allowed to visit them. Even victims of prisoners can reserve the right to visit them once, just to observe them. I think that last bit is meant to strengthen the wizarding world's view that the prison sufficiently punishes criminals, or something. A vote-winner, if you will."

Harry thought this over. "So a Ministry official – maybe an Auror, like Kingsley – could go and search the prison if they came up with a good enough excuse?"

"Probably," Lupin agreed. "However, you can do one better. You yourself have a right to visit the prison if you tell them you wish to see Sirius Black."

"Who?"

"One of the prisoners, and that's all you need to know for now," Lupin replied in a stern, no-nonsense tone.

Once more, Harry decided there was no point in pushing him for more information. However, he already knew that Sirius Black had once lived in the house he was staying in, though Harry wasn't entirely certain how long ago he'd been there. Harry wondered whether, if he had a closer look at the tapestry showing the Black family tree, he would find some kind of clue about Sirius Black's identity. His room was unlikely to help in that respect, since it had been quite thoroughly cleaned out but for the note he had left.

"All right," he said absently. "I should go straight away, then."

"Be careful, Harry," Lupin warned.

"I will."

"And…" Lupin seemed to hesitate before tapping the Marauders Map with his wand, clearing it, and handing it to Harry. "Take this, for when you come back to Hogwarts. It rightfully belongs to you, now."

As Harry took the map then slipped his invisibility cloak, a warm sort of feeling settled over him. His heart fluttered a little. He realised as he approached the Apparition line that the feeling filling him was a small grain of hope.

He might get through this, after all.

* * *

Sirius Black didn't appear on the tapestry at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. However, Harry was quick to note that there was a scorch mark beside Regulus Black's name, where another name should have resided. If he was right, they would have been brothers. Harry wondered whether Sirius was a Death Eater, like his brother had been before he betrayed Voldemort and his cause.

Harry felt somewhat flustered at the thought. The last week or so had seemed filled with nothing but coincidence after coincidence, especially where the Black family was concerned. Harry found himself on the path to no longer believing in any kind of coincidence. If it was all happening for a reason – because it was fated, probably, with Harry's luck when it came to Divination – he was going to be prepared for it.

It was for this reason that Harry secured his invisibility cloak on the dog. Just before he pulled the hood over the dog's head, it seemed to give him a questioning look.

"You're coming just in case. I don't want to risk leaving you behind if you're meant to be there. I've got a feeling about it."

Harry led him outside the house and to the alley nearby to Apparate.

* * *

Considering that Harry had no real idea where he was even going, he was surprised when picturing what he imagined Azkaban to be like in his head and using that as his Apparition focus didn't actually get him and the dog splinched. Rather, they appeared not too far from where two men – wizards, Harry supposed, by the look of their apparel – were guarding the entrance to a kind of dock, at which were tied a number of boats not unlike those that transported first years across the Hogwarts lake.

His hand fell down to where the dog stood at his side, and he gave the invisible animal a slight push forward. The dog appeared to understand that he wanted it to walk with him, for Harry could feel brushes against his leg every so often as he approached the wizards.

"Name and purpose?" one of the men demanded.

"Er," Harry started uncertainly, "I'm Harry Potter. I want to see Sirius Black."

The two wizards gave each other a knowing look.

"Since this is your first visit to Azkaban," the other man began, "we are obliged to tell you that visitors are not able to take further revenge on the prisoners. They are already being punished under the law."

Revenge? Harry frowned slightly at the man, wondering what he was talking about. Why would he want to take revenge on a man he didn't even know? Why was he being allowed in to see this man in the first place?

"Furthermore," the older wizard continued, "there is to be no actual contact with the prisoner, either physical or magical. If you attempt to use magic inside the prison, be aware that the guards will subdue you. The Ministry of Magic takes no responsibility for what may happen to you in such circumstances. Do you consent to this?"

Harry nodded, a shiver running through him. He'd heard of the guards of Azkaban. Dementors. They'd begun running amuck since Voldemort's return, if the Daily Prophet was anything to go by. Harry had no desire to get on their bad side.

"All right, then," the wizard affirmed. "Sirius Black is located in cell number 119. Try not to get lost."

Harry nodded and got into the boat he was shown to, glad to feel the dog brush up against him, slightly rocking the boat as he leapt in after Harry. One of the wizards silently tapped the side of the boat with his wand and it shot off in the direction of what looked to Harry like nothing more than a dark blob in the distance. However, the boat was moving fast, and what was merely a shadow soon became a foreboding sort of structure on an island not much bigger than the building itself.

Harry shivered as a wave of cold washed over him. At first he thought it was the ocean wind, but it grew progressively colder as the boat neared the island. Harry hugged his robe closer to himself, though it seemed to make absolutely no difference, as if the cold was coming from inside him rather than around him.

Dementors, he remembered suddenly. He recalled skimming over a reading about Dementors in his Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook once a year or so ago. They sucked the happiness from people, leaving them feeling cold and often drowning in their own despair.

Harry grew slightly worried at this thought. He had a lot to despair about, really.

He felt the dog jolt against him and heard it whimper. He supposed it must be able to feel the effects of the Dementors as well.

When the boat finally arrived at the island, Harry stepped out on shaking legs. He could hear the dog clamber out after him. As they approached the entrance to the prison, Harry could see a veritable cloud of black-cloaked figures swarming about, as if they'd been waiting with baited breath for the fresh prey that was now approaching.

As he reached the entrance, the Dementors seemed to all, as one, draw in a rattling breath. Harry felt as if they were drawing his soul out of him, memorising it even as they fed on the happiness they found within him. The sight of Dumbledore lying dead in his St Mungo's bed flashed into Harry's mind and he suddenly felt faint enough to collapse right where he stood. From the yelp the still-invisible dog let out, Harry knew it was going through something similar.

Harry just wanted to fall to the ground and sleep for an eternity when the assault finally let up somewhat. Focusing on the thought of Hufflepuff's cup was all he could do to keep himself conscious as he staggered inside, attempting to get as far away as he could from the horde of Dementors gathered at the door. It didn't help much, since they were still drawing the happiness steadily from him, and there were more Dementors littered throughout the prison, anyway, so he'd still feel the effects no matter where in the building he went. However, the idea of being further from the majority of them helped to harden his resolve.

Harry thought that he might understand now what it felt like to be a prisoner of Azkaban, except that it must be a million times worse to be kept here indefinitely. It was no wonder most of them went completely mad and/or died. The Dementor's Kiss would be a mercy compared to a lifetime of this feeling. It was more than punishment enough for any crime one might commit.

Cell number 119 must have been located about as far away from the entrance of the prison as possible. Harry had to pass by countless cells on the way there. Some of them were empty. Some were filled with screaming, struggling prisoners. Most, though, were home to pale, dilapidated bodies that looked to be little more than corpses that could still draw breath. Harry was forcibly reminded of Dumbledore in his last moments and shuddered. He imagined that those were the people who had already spent many years imprisoned within the stone walls of the prison. Harry wondered whether Sirius Black would be one of those newer prisoners whose spirit had yet to completely break, or whether Harry would see only pale skin and dead eyes when he looked into that cell.  
Harry saw something that he hadn't expected at all, for cell 119's sole occupant was a small blond man who was violently shivering where he lay on the floor. He looked nothing like any of the portraits at Grimmauld Place. He looked only a little worse for wear than Harry felt. Harry couldn't imagine that he'd been in the prison for more than a month or so. But then, why hadn't anyone, including the paper, mentioned this new arrest? Perhaps he wasn't a Death Eater, and so wasn't considered important enough to be discussed. But then, the human guards had acted as if Harry had some reason to seek retribution against this man. Shouldn't he have had at least some idea who he was?

"Who are you?" Harry murmured.

The prisoner started at the sound of his voice. His head shot up to look at Harry. His blank eyes abruptly narrowed with recognition. Harry's eyes mirrored that action, for he knew this man.

"Potter?" the young man wheezed.

Harry would have said the young man's name in return if he could remember it. Unfortunately, all he could remember was that it definitely wasn't Sirius Black.

The young man had been a seventh-year Hufflepuff prefect back when Harry was a first year. Harry had never spoken to him, but he could recognise him by sight well enough. He was fairly certain his name was Dingle or something similar, but Harry couldn't be entirely sure.

"Where's Sirius Black?"

The invisible dog brushed up against Harry somewhat urgently, perhaps as if it wanted to tell him something, or maybe as a question. Harry ignored it.

The prisoner's laugh sounded more like a cough, it was so harsh. "Oh, he's escaped. I was caught by Death Eaters and put under the Imperius Curse so they could bring me here and exchange me for him. The Dementors were none the wiser."

Harry's stomach felt like it was plunging right through the ground beneath his feet.

"Black's a Death Eater?"

The prisoner snorted. "'Course he is. Would have thought you of all people would have heard of him. My parents said he was You Know Who's main man. I heard it was him who told You Know Who where to find your parents."

Harry stared uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then his vision seemed to go red as he realised that this was the man that Lupin had been talking about. Sirius Black had betrayed his parents. He'd been their _friend_, and he'd betrayed them.

He didn't think he'd ever wanted to kill anyone quite so much before, not even Snape, or Bellatrix Lestrange, and perhaps not even Voldemort himself. Right then, he felt fully capable of casting a successful Killing Curse, and then walking away without feeling any remorse whatsoever.

The dog whimpered beside him, bringing him back to himself. He pushed the rage he was feeling deep inside. He'd pull it back out when he found Sirius Black. The Dementors would seem like nothing compared to what Harry would do to him.

"The Death Eater that brought you here. Did he bring anything with him? A cup of some sort."

The young man shook his head slightly. "No. But he did check on something, like he was making sure it was still there. Not a cup, though. A shield, like a trophy or something."

Harry nodded to himself. "Transfigured. Where is it?"

The young man shrugged. "I wasn't exactly myself at the time, was I? They had me under an _Unforgivable_. I'm pretty sure we walked for a fair while between there and here, though, so it's probably closer to the entrance."

Harry nodded once more. "Good," he went to leave, but was stopped by a desperate voice.

"No! Please, don't leave me here."

Harry looked down at the young man with pitying eyes. "I swear I'll have you out of here soon. I won't leave you to stay here."

The prisoner didn't seem to believe Harry, if the look in his eyes was any indication. However, he didn't say any more when Harry walked away.

Perhaps it was just how the feeling of constant cold depression seemed to make every second take at least twice as long as usual, but it seemed to take forever before Harry found the shield the man had obviously spoken about. It looked archaic, as if it had come from the Muggle world in the time of great sword battles and conquests. It certainly fit in well enough in the medieval-feeling prison. Harry could feel some kind of magic around it, though he couldn't really read much else from it apart from that. That was enough for Harry, though, especially once he noticed the tiny picture of a badger on the shield.

"This is it," Harry whispered. He wasn't sure who he was talking to. Perhaps he just needed to say it aloud to partly relieve the pressure that seemed to be welling up in his chest with each passing second that he stared at what could potentially contain a seventh of Voldemort's soul, and could allow him access to a further two Horcruxes.

There was that feeling again. Harry wondered whether hope could be addictive.

Harry reached up and tried to dislodge the shield from the wall, but it wouldn't budge. Harry frowned and drew his wand. Even as the words for an unsticking charm left his mouth, the dog barked in warning. A second later, Harry realised why.

The shield fell down into his hands. He had barely had time to tuck it against his chest with his left hand, his wand still clutched in his right, when Dementors started sweeping down on him.

Of course. The men back on the mainland had told him not to use magic. Sometimes Harry really felt like an idiot.

He shot several curses at them, but nothing seemed to even slightly faze them. In fact, each curse only seemed to sap his failing energy even further, as well as attracting more of the dark creatures toward him. As the Dementors loomed over him, the visual of Dumbledore's corpse merged into Voldemort's voice saying "Kill the spare," which in turn became feminine screams of what sounded like Harry's name. Harry thought he felt himself falling, only to be caught around the middle and have his wand snatched from his hand.

"_Expecto Patronum_!"

A flash of white highlighted the gaunt face of a man, whose body was still half-covered by an invisibility cloak, before Harry's eyes fell closed.


	7. Chapter 7

**************CHAPTER SEVEN**  
  
"Harry. Wake up."

Harry felt his body being shaken, but he felt far too lethargic to respond to any order that actually involved him opening his eyes or, worse still, having to admit to being conscious in the first place. Maybe if he pretended to still be fully asleep long enough, the annoying voice would leave him alone.

"Harry, we're nearly there. You have to get up."

Nearly where? Harry groaned and forced his eyelids to separate.

"There's a boy. You have to get up. They can't see me, so you have to be able to move on your own."

Harry squinted at the source of the voice. Oh, right, he'd seen that man before. He'd been the one to catch Harry when he fell. Ah, now he remembered what had happened. There had been Dementors. Considering that he wasn't dead or at the very least seriously deficient in the soul department, Harry decided the practically-skeletal man must have saved him.

"I know you," he said simply. That thought didn't quite get his whole point across, but right then he couldn't seem to articulate himself well enough to be bothered trying again.

The man's face suddenly became fearful. "I'm not who you think I am!"

Harry frowned. "To be honest, I don't have a clue who you are, apart from that I remember that you saved my life. And I'm pretty sure you're actually a dog, which is somewhat weird, but not unheard of. Should I know anything more than that?"

The man suddenly seemed both calmer and incredibly embarrassed. "Er… no. Of course not. Well then, I suppose the better denial is that this really isn't what it looks like."

Harry snorted, too tired to actually gather up any feeling of actual anger. "Oh, so I haven't had some complete stranger – some _scruffy_ stranger, at that – masquerading as a dog and following me all over the country, not to mention sleeping in my bed with me?"

"Well… you know, when you put it that way…"

Harry suddenly sat up with a jolt. "Merlin, you saw me _naked_. You couldn't have said something?"

The older man looked at once both amused and uncomfortable. "Uh, no, not really. I was a _dog_. It may have escaped your notice, but dogs don't actually talk."

Harry grunted. "Well, you could have left the room. Or turned away, at least. It's just good manners, really."

The man actually had the hide to grin, which annoyed Harry a little. "I didn't want to disturb you. Besides, it wasn't a bad view."

Harry groaned and covered his eyes with his hand. "Thanks. I think I'm scarred for life now. You're something like double my age."

"A bit more," the man shrugged, "but that doesn't make it any less true."

Harry frowned at him. "Who _are_ you anyway?"

"For now, all I can tell you is that I'm a friend. You'll have to trust me. Now, I need to put the cloak back on so the guards don't see me when I get off the boat. We can talk more when we get back to Grimmauld Place."

As the man disappeared under the invisibility cloak, Harry grumbled, "You're lucky you saved my life back there, otherwise I wouldn't be anything like this compliant. And don't think you're off the hook either. I still want to know what the heck is going on."

"Once we're alone again," the man promised from under the cloak. "Now be quiet. We're about to reach the dock."

"Thinks he can order me around," Harry muttered, but then fell silent as he'd been asked.

As soon as he was back on solid ground, Harry stormed off without saying anything to the two men waiting there. It would probably have been more impressive if he wasn't paler than any ghost and shaking so badly he couldn't seem to walk straight.

He Apparated back to the alley on Grimmauld Place and walked to the house, trusting the Animagus, or whatever he was, could find his own way back. He waited at the door. The fact that it suddenly sprung open seemed to signal the man's arrival, he supposed, since it had always been the dog who unlocked the door. Harry followed the invisible figure inside.

As Harry shut the door, the man took off the cloak and hung it off the cloak rack near the door. Harry spun around to face him, an accusatory glare on his face.

"Are you Regulus Black?"

The man looked surprised, and for a moment Harry actually thought his guess had been right.

"Of course not!" The man seemed vaguely offended at the suggestion. However, he then appeared to reconsider this reaction and think better of it. "Well, I suppose you aren't that far off. I am a Black, as I'm sure you must have figured out from the fact that I'm keyed into the door of the house. I'm _the_ Black these days, if you like, since I actually own this dump now. I'm head of the Merlin-forsaken family." The man laughed at this. "My parents would roll over in their graves. I suppose something good had to come out of it."

Harry's brain may have been working slowly after fainting because of the Dementors, but he could add two and two. He went to draw his wand, only to find it not in his pocket. Black seemed to realise what Harry was looking for, because he withdrew Harry's wand from his own pocket. Harry snatched at it, but Black yanked it away so that he couldn't reach it.

"I don't think now is the best time to give this back, Harry. You look a bit too angry at the moment."

Harry's eyes flashed with anger. "A _bit angry_? I know who you are now! You're _Sirius Black_!"

The man's almost gentle smile fell into a flat line. "Ah. So you have heard of me. I'm sorry, Harry. I had rather hoped I might get my side of the story across before you –"

"_'Your side'_?" Harry asked incredulously. He growled at Black. "There is no 'your side'! You betrayed my parents!"

Harry physically leapt at Black. They wrestled on the floor and Harry got in a few good punches, but Black managed to keep Harry's wand out of his reach. Eventually, Black pinned Harry under him. Even as thin as he was, he still outweighed Harry, and the younger man couldn't dislodge him. Years of Quidditch training suddenly seemed absolutely useless; he didn't even half enough muscle built up to defend himself against a half-dead middle-aged Death Eater.

He squirmed underneath Black just a little too hard, and instead of throwing Black's body off him, Harry's own body reacted quite inappropriately, given the situation. He would be surprised if Black hadn't noticed it, but the older man said nothing, so Harry had to assume that he was ignorant as to the hardness pressing into his leg. It occurred to Harry for the first time that he was in a prime position for the Death Eater above him to take advantage of him. Instead of prompting him to feel fear, that thought only made Harry angry.

"Harry, just listen –"

"Stop saying my name like we're friends!" Harry screamed at him. "You don't even deserve to be alive!"

Black blinked in shock. Harry thought that he looked almost heartbroken. But of course, Sirius Black had betrayed Harry's parents, and was a Death Eater, so he didn't have a heart, Harry reminded himself. It must have been a trick of the light.

"I didn't betray your parents," Black refuted quietly.

"You did!" Harry argued. "The guy in prison said so, and so did Lupin! You –"

"Remus is still alive?" Black asked desperately. The tone of his voice made Harry snap his jaw shut unconsciously. "Is he all right?"

Harry regarded the man who was still trapping him against the ground. Either he was an exceptional actor or he was actually really concerned about Lupin. Of course, he'd fooled Harry's parents into trusting him with their lives, so his acting skills probably weren't all that meagre.

"He's fine. Not that it's any of your business."

"Oh, thank Merlin. That's something." Black closed his eyes as if to blink back tears. "You and he are all I have left."

"And whose fault is that?" Harry shot back, trying once more to buck Black off him, to no avail.

Black's face seemed to shadow over. "It's mine. I admit that. If not for me… But Harry, it was Peter Pettigrew who actually betrayed your parents, not me! I swear I didn't give your parents to Voldemort."

Harry abruptly stopped struggling. "Who's Peter Pettigrew?"

Black exhaled. "He was our friend as well. James was going to have me be the Secret Keeper, under the Fidelius Charm, but I persuaded him at the last minute that Peter would be a better choice. I thought Voldemort would never suspect him. He wasn't the strongest of people, really. We should have suspected that he was the traitor for the very same reason. By the time it came out, it was too late. He'd betrayed your parents, and they were dead. I tracked him down and killed him in revenge. That's the crime they officially imprisoned me for, not for being a Death Eater or betraying your parents. They could never prove I did any of that, because I didn't."

Harry shook his head. "But you can't prove that you _didn't_ do it, either. It's a bit convenient that you're the only one still alive who knew that you swapped, isn't it? Why didn't you tell Lupin?"

Black looked extremely miserable at the mention of it. "We suspected him. We didn't think it through. It was just… he was spending so much time with those other werewolves, supposedly for the Order, but we just weren't sure. It felt like we barely knew him anymore. It wasn't a good time, back then. No one was sure who they could trust."

Harry's eyes widen as he processed what had just been said. "Werewolves? What do you mean _other_ werewolves?"

Black's mouth opened in surprise, but no words came out.

"Lupin is a werewolf?" Harry asked quietly. "Merlin, why doesn't anyone ever tell me anything? Do I have a 'do not tell him important details' sign pasted on my forehead along with the bloody great scar?"

"I thought you must have known," Black choked out. "Do you mean he told you about me but not about himself?"

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose as he'd always seen Uncle Vernon do to stop headaches. He could feel the mother of all migraines coming on. He still felt way too weak and sick to deal with any of this.

"He didn't tell me the whole story," Harry admitted. "I kind of pieced what he said together with what I'd heard other people say. He didn't want me to know any of it."

Black looked devastated. "Oh, Merlin. I've never given his secret away to anyone. Well, not since Snape, at least… Harry, you can't judge him by that. He's always careful on the full moon, and the rest of the time he's one of the best and kindest men you'll ever meet, really."

Harry sighed in annoyance. "Why do you care what I think of him?"

"I told you; you're both all I have in the world."

"How can I ever trust you?" Harry asked. "How can I even begin to believe you're not just lying through your teeth? You pretended to be just a dog. You could have saved us all this by changing back to being human straight away and explaining this all to me before I heard the other side of the story elsewhere."

Black shook his head. "I couldn't. I was under Imperius for a long time. Voldemort thought your locket was in my house, I think, because that's where he thought Regulus would leave it. He needed me to take you to the house and let you in; otherwise he couldn't get to it."

"Why couldn't he just order you to take him or one of his Death Eaters there?"

Black smiled. "I'm not completely incompetent at breaking the Imperius Curse. If the order goes against what I would normally want, then I can generally defy it. However, the order of the Imperius was to help you get what you wanted. That's what I wanted as well. As your godfather, it's my duty."

"You're my godfather?" Harry asked, wide-eyed once more.

"Yes," Black said. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there for your childhood. If I could actually control my temper, I could have gone to Dumbledore and told him about Peter instead of running off and killing the little rat. You're right, you know. There's no way now to clear myself other than Veritaserum, and the Wizengamot doesn't allow its use in trials. Even if they did, I'd still be sent right back to prison. That's the worst part; I'm guilty of the murder I was locked up for. I killed Peter."

"But if what you're saying is true," Harry began reasonably, realising even as he said it that he was indeed starting to believe it _was_ true, "then you only killed a Death Eater, the man who betrayed my parents."

Black shook his head. "It doesn't matter. There's no 'only's in murder. He may have been a Death Eater in name, but as far as anyone knows, he never did more than tell Voldemort where the Potters – you and your parents – were. That's not a crime, as much as it should be. The fact that the person you kill isn't a good person isn't a defence to murder."

Harry looked pointedly away. A sinking feeling had decided to fill his chest rather abruptly. "Am I going to have to go to Azkaban even if I outlive Voldemort, then? I thought it was just a choice of kill or be killed. Is it really a choice of kill and be imprisoned for life or be killed? Because I'd prefer not to die a murderer locked up and left to the mercy of the Dementors, if that's the case."

Black's dark eyes, which had seemed half-mad until that very moment, seemed to soften. Where seconds ago he'd been still holding Harry down, suddenly he was simply holding Harry.

"Oh, no, Harry. Of course not. When you rid the world of that bastard, that's going to be self-defence. It's different. You'll be a hero, not a criminal."

Harry was stunned that he wasn't pushing the other man away. He was even more stunned to find that he was allowing tears to run down his face while Black held him.

"I've already killed a man," Harry whispered. "When I was eleven. That was self-defence too, and I didn't even realise I was killing him. I lost consciousness before he died, so I don't really remember it. He was my teacher. He was also being possessed by Voldemort."

"That's not your fault either," Black reassured him.

Harry wasn't finished, though. "I was responsible for the death of a boy I went to school with as well. And it's my fault Dumbledore's dead. And my parents…"

Black suddenly let go of him. "If I _ever_ hear you say that it's your fault James and Lily are dead…"

Harry bit his lip. "If it wasn't for me…"

"If it wasn't for _Voldemort_, you mean. You wouldn't be in any danger if not for him. It's his fault, not yours. He killed them."

Harry suddenly started laughing. "I wanted to kill you. I'm still not sure that I shouldn't. Like you said, you're a murderer, and I'll never know for sure that you weren't responsible for my parents' deaths."

"Can you trust me?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know. Merlin, I'll try. But how can I… I can't just accept that you're completely innocent, just like that."

Black seemed suddenly hopeful, though. "I've done nothing but help you for days now. Can't you at least take it on faith long enough give me the opportunity to prove to you that I'm trustworthy?"

Harry hesitated, but eventually he nodded.

Black smiled, and his wizened face suddenly seemed so much younger that Harry thought he'd just received a glimpse of what Black must have looked like when he was Harry's age. He must have been incredibly handsome before Azkaban ruined him.

"Can I let you up now?" Black asked. Harry was surprised to hear the hint of a teasing tone in his voice.

Harry nodded. "Yes, please. I think my legs are going numb."

Luckily that also meant that other parts of Harry's anatomy had gone limp. It would have been highly embarrassing to have Black know that Harry had gotten an erection because of him. He was old. He looked half-dead. And besides, he was apparently Harry's godfather, which made that sort of thing more than just a bit bizarre. And that wasn't even _mentioning_ the fact that he may well have been responsible for the deaths of Harry's parents, if he was just spinning some big lie after all.

His life was _weird_.

* * *

Black had fallen asleep in his old room, while Harry worked on transfiguring the shield back into a cup. It was hard work. Transfiguration had never been Harry's strong suit. However, he felt fairly certain that the continuation of his life could work as adequate motivation to do a good job. After all, without the cup being in cup form, the mirror couldn't put the locket inside the cup, and Harry couldn't return both cup and locket to Malfoy within a week of saying he would. Since Harry really didn't particularly want to die if he had a choice in the matter, he'd resigned himself to spending as much time as necessary on the cup.

When Black finally emerged from his nap, he looked bleary eyed and still half asleep. Harry thought it might have been cute if the man didn't look so emaciated and… well, unwashed.

"I don't think all that time under Imperius did me any good," he admitted. "I feel like I've been half asleep for years. In fact, this still feels like a dream. Am I dreaming?"

Harry grinned, "I don't know. You look reasonably awake to me. Maybe you're just delusional."

Black glared at him, but Harry knew instinctively that the jibe had been taken as good-natured, as it was intended.

"Some godson you are. You're supposed to be nice to your poor godfather."

Harry smirked. "You wish." Then his grin died. "Are you sure you aren't still under the Imperius Curse?"

"Very," Black replied deprecatingly. "It's not that hard to tell you're out of its influence once you break it. I broke it when we returned to Grimmauld Place after... after. You told me to leave you alone at some stage, and that really wasn't what I wanted to do at all. It wasn't easy, but I managed to stick pretty close to you."

Harry nodded acceptingly. "I don't even think I knew what I wanted at the time. I still don't have a clue."

Black grinned. "Potters seem to have a history of that problem, if your father was anything to go by."

Harry bit his lip. "I wish that I had time to just sit down and hear stories about my parents. All anyone ever told me was that they were good people, and how much I look like my father. And that I have my mother's eyes, of course. But I never hear what they got up to when they were my age, or how they met, or anything at all that would give me a single clue what they were actually _like_. And now that I have someone who could tell me about them, I'm stuck working to a time limit trying to transfigure something which Voldemort himself spelled into place. It's not like having the threat of imminent death hanging over my head is really helping matters, either."

Black gave the shield a scrutinising look. "You know, I was quite good at Transfiguration back in the day. Maybe I could give you a hand?"

Harry snorted. "No offence, I'm sure you were great, but it's been a decade and a half since you've done any real magic, and you don't even have your own wand. I wouldn't be surprised if you'd forgotten even the theory behind this kind of Transfiguration, let alone lost the practical ability. If I'd had those Dementors feasting on my memories for fifteen years, I think the things I'd learned at Hogwarts would be long gone."

Black scowled. "I managed a corporeal Patronus strong enough to clear a hall full of Dementors. That's pretty powerful magic, I should think."

Harry bit his lip. "You're right. And I would have had my soul sucked out if you hadn't been there. I never even thanked you for saving me."

Black's eyes seemed to soften. "And you'll never have to. I'm your godfather, Harry. It's my job to look after you."

"Yeah, well, it still wasn't the best thanks ever when I attacked you and wanted to kill you afterwards."

Black shrugged. "I suppose not. It could have gone worse, though. You could have succeeded in finishing me off, and then where would we be?"

Black sounded indifferent as he said it, but the words struck a chord in Harry.

"Oh Merlin, what if I had? I could have killed you if I'd had my wand. Then I'd never have been able to hear your side. Or worse, I might have found out the truth later, when it was too late."

Harry was abruptly pulled into a hug. Black ran his hand comfortingly up and down Harry's back as he said. "Relax. You didn't. And even if you had, you would've been well within your rights to do it. I'm a murderer myself, remember, and you thought that I'd got your parents killed on top of that. I would definitely have been feeling a bit homicidal if I was in your position."

"It's not all right, though," Harry said quietly, his voice muffled due to his face being nearly buried in Black's threadbare robes. "I'd still have killed you. Just like I'll still be killing Voldemort if I succeed. Nothing's going to change that. It doesn't matter what you or anyone else says. I'll either be a murderer, or I'll be dead. Some choice."

"I wish you didn't have to make it," Black replied, wisely choosing not to contest Harry's claim again.

"I wish I could stay here forever, never having to worry about what's going on out there in the real world." Harry withdrew his face from where it was pressed against Black's chest and glanced at the row of house elf heads that hung above them. "Well, maybe not _here_, exactly. This house is more than a little morbid."

Black grinned. "You've got that right. When this is all over, I'm burning the place to the ground. You just see if you can stop me."

Harry grinned back. "I wouldn't try to. Especially if it made you happy."

Black's eyes seemed to shine strangely. "You would never have caught your father saying something that sentimental and… well… _caring_. Not that he didn't care about me. It just makes for a nice change to spend time with someone who isn't too cool to say what they're thinking."

"Everyone always says how like my Dad I am, though," Harry said, his eyebrows furrowing.

Black narrowed his eyes as if in thought. "Well, you are, but you aren't as well. When I look at you, sometimes I see James and Lily in you, but then sometimes I forget that you're James's son and my godson and I just see a young man. I get so confused these days, though. I guess my mind hasn't been as sharp since the Dementors took a liking to it."

Harry shuddered. Fifteen years… It was a wonder Black had survived at all, let alone with only a reasonably small amount of confusion every so often to show for it.

"You'll never have to go back to Azkaban again, though," Harry reminded him. For the first time, nearly a day after he'd first found out the man's real identity, he realised that he truly no longer had any doubt about Black's innocence. This, of course, meant that he had an actual godfather. He had _family_. It made him feel warm inside.

Sirius smirked, but there seemed to be some trace of sadness behind that look. "No. No, I don't think I will. I'd die first."

Harry's heart sank a little. Not while I still have a say you won't, he thought to himself.

"Well then," he said, false cheerfulness infusing his tone, "we'll just have to make sure that the Ministry doesn't catch up with you, won't we?"

This time Black's sneer seemed completely genuine. "Not likely. The Ministry's nothing but petty bureaucrats who couldn't find their own arses unless they were handed to them on a silver platter. They probably don't even know I'm gone yet."

Harry sat bolt upright. "No, they don't! I haven't told anyone about that guy who they replaced you with. I just left him there!"

Harry would have bolted for the Floo right then, but Black stopped him. "The Floo isn't connected, and there aren't any owls here at the moment. My parents were reclusive and suspicious prats. Outside communication was evil, as far as they were concerned. So you'll just have to wait a while.

"Besides, that boy's already spent a reasonable amount of time in there, and he seemed relatively fine. He'll survive another few hours while you transfigure your shield. Saving your life is even more important than saving him from time in the presence of those soul-suckers."

Harry nodded regretfully. "I suppose so." He glared down at the shield, which still looked almost as much like a shield as it had when he'd started attempting to change it back into a cup, though a mutated kind of handle had sprung out from one side. "This is going to take forever, though," he moaned, his frustration turning his voice bitter. "If only they focused on how to restore things other people have transfigured at Hogwarts, this might be a little easier. How am I meant to break a transfiguration performed by _Voldemort_, for crying out loud?"

Black frowned a little. "They did cover that in my day actually. In the NEWT level class. I think it was in seventh year."

Harry scowled. "Fat lot of good that does me. I haven't done my seventh year yet, have I? I probably never will now. Even if Hogwarts doesn't close with Dumbledore gone, I don't think I really belong there anymore."

"I _have_ done my seventh year, though, remember?" Black gave Harry a reproachful look. "Regardless of what you might think, Azkaban didn't leave me completely brain-dead. I can still give you a bit of _help_ in performing the reversal, if nothing else."

Harry nodded slightly. Really, what choice did he have?

* * *

It took them about four hours for Black – Sirius, Harry reminded himself, his godfather had told him repeatedly while they worked together to call him Sirius – to help Harry to unweave the transfiguration. He was finally satisfied, based on, based on the picture of Hufflepuff's cup that Harry was carrying and what he'd seen of it in the mirror, that it looked as it should. At the end of all that, the cup was ready to go Hogwarts to retrieve its fellow Horcrux. Harry, on the other hand, was less eager.

Once he got the locket, he would only have two hours to get out of the school, out past the anti-Apparition line and into the cave to give the Death Eater on duty both the locket and the cup. Anything could happen in two hours. There could be all sorts of delays. Hell, he could freeze up and forget how to Apparate, for all he knew, and then he'd be as good as dead, because there couldn't possibly be any other way to get there – there being the middle of nowhere (Harry wasn't really entirely certain of its actual location in the first place) – in less than two hours.

He could be dead in less than a day. In a couple of _hours_.

He wasn't ready for this.

He couldn't tell Black – Sirius – what was bothering him until it was all over though, because he definitely wasn't ready to drop dead where he stood for no reason. That would be one good thing about getting this all over, of course; Harry wouldn't have to worry any longer that his tongue would slip and he'd be executed by accident by his own Vow. As it was, the constant presence of the Vow seemed to put pressure on him. Every time he thought about it, it was suddenly hard to breath. It wasn't a good feeling at all. He'd certainly be glad to see the back of it.

"I think I need a minute," Harry muttered to Sirius and walked out the door into the next room without glancing at the older man. He needed to get away. Merlin, he needed some time to himself, when he didn't have to worry about keeping up appearances. He… he needed to hyperventilate, actually, judging by the shortness of his breath. He was having a panic attack. It would have been funny if everything wasn't so deathly serious.

"It'll be over soon," Sirius said quietly from behind him.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Harry replied as evenly as he could manage, without turning around.

"You don't have to be afraid. You've gotten yourself through situations like this before, I hear, and you've yet to permanently damage yourself."

Harry snorted, turning around to look at Black. "Not where you can see it, no. I'm not exactly well-adjusted, though, am I?"

Sirius smirked back at him. "Probably not. But then, I wasn't well-adjusted even before I went to Azkaban. Nor was your father, really. But that's what made life interesting. If you were different, you wouldn't be Harry Potter, and it would seem that a lot of people like you just the way you are, so you can't have turned out too bad."

"I think they really like me kind of in spite of everything, though." Harry smiled, though it was at least partly forced. His face quickly fell back into its anxious set. "I wish I didn't think about this. It's not even the most danger I've been in. I think the problem is that I know exactly what I'm getting into this time."

"Right. Well, the Gryffindor motto is 'Where necessary, dive headfirst into murky water'. It doesn't exactly specify what you should do when you can see the bottom."

Harry looked at his godfather askance. "It's not really that, is it?"

Sirius shrugged. "It could be. I was brought up in a long line of psychotic Slytherins, remember? My parents weren't exactly big on the Gryffindor house history. I do know that the Slytherin motto is 'By patience, or by whatever means necessary, we shall conquer'. That always gave me a laugh. Most Slytherins I've met aren't exactly the most patient people. Nor the brightest, really, but that's another story entirely."

Harry laughed. "Thanks. I can't believe you actually know the Slytherin motto."

"My parents drilled it into me. They pretty much disowned me when I was sorted into the lion cage rather than the snake pit."

"They sound like Death Eaters," Harry mused. "I can't believe you were raised by them. Are you sure you really aren't a Death Eater in disguise?"

It was meant to be a joke, but Sirius's face suddenly went entirely expressionless. He reached down and jerked his sleeve up, brandishing his unmarked arm at Harry.

"I swear to you that I'm not. Please, Harry, believe me. I never would have done anything like what my parents or even my brother did."

"That's…" Harry trailed off, his expression pained. "I was joking. Sirius, you don't have to prove yourself to me. I trust you."

It was as if a light switched on behind the convict's eyes. Harry wondered if he'd so obviously craved support when he'd first entered into the wizarding world, having never received it at the Dursleys. It was a humbling thought.

He didn't have much time to consider it, though, for Sirius had practically thrown himself at Harry, winding him and effectively taking his mind off anything that had previously been filling it.

He'd had parental hugs before. Mrs Weasley always seemed intent on giving them to him every time he visited. He'd also had friendly hugs from Hermione and even Ron, though Merlin knew Ron wasn't exactly touchy-feely. Sirius's arms around him felt different to all those that came before it. Although, strangely, if Harry had to compare it to any of the physical touches he'd ever had, for some reason his encounters with Ginny came to mind. It was rather a good thing he'd never gotten very much farther than cuddling and a bit of kissing with Ginny, Harry felt, because that would have made that thought quite weird indeed. Sirius Black was his _godfather_, for Merlin's sake.

Even though Harry was actually a bit old to need a godfather, come to that.

Regardless of what type of hug it was, though, it was comforting. Harry felt energised. He felt… well, as ready as he'd ever be to face what was coming. He had a feeling that his courage might be fleeting, though, Gryffindor or not. It was now or never.

"Okay. I feel a bit better now. I think we should get this over with."


	8. Chapter 8

******************CHAPTER EIGHT**

The third time Harry followed the path from the trap door in the third floor corridor to the chamber containing the Mirror of Erised at the end, he was met by no resistance at all. It was for this reason that he'd left the dog – Sirius – standing beside the open trap door, keeping watch; as much as he would like some company, he didn't have time to go through all the tasks just because Sirius hadn't faced them before. He wasn't even all that sure that he could pass some of them on his own. The chessboard, for example, would seem just a little too daunting to Harry without Ron standing by to make the hard strategic decisions.

It was a little scary how much Harry relied on his friends. He wouldn't be able to this time around.

Harry stopped a moment before he stepped within view of the mirror, Hufflepuff's cup clutched in his hand. He glanced at his watch and marked the time as six minutes after seven. That gave him until just after nine o'clock at night to get the Horcruxes to the Death Eaters.

He stepped up to the mirror and met his reflection's eyes. Nothing seemed to happen for a long moment, and Harry worried that they might not have reversed the transfiguration entirely. It had felt right, though, once it had finally fallen into place. It had felt like the item was back to the form it wanted to be in, as if it was somehow sentient. It might well be, for all that Harry knew. Nothing in the magical world would really surprise him these days, and his knowledge of Horcruxes, though greater than that of most witches or wizards, was still lacking.

After a few breathless seconds, though, Harry's reflection dropped the locket into the goblet. Though the weight added to the cup in Harry's hand wasn't excessive, it was still perceptible. He glanced into the cup.

With his free hand, he almost reverently dipped his fingers into the cup to retrieve the locket. When he pulled it out slightly, the links of the chain dangled between his fingers, slightly glinting in the dim light. Satisfied, Harry replaced it into the cup and then withdrew his wand.

"_Reducto_!" he cried.

The glass of the mirror shattered with a satisfying crash. When the splintering reaction to the spell ceased, the remaining backboard stood uncovered with a hole clear through it, almost ripped in half. Harry thought he could feel the complex charms that had enchanted it fading out of existence, and he was somehow sure that one seventh of Voldemort's soul went with it. Harry delivered a vicious kick to what still remained of the mirror, causing it to crash backward and fully split apart against the stone floor. A sense of relief washed over Harry.

Three Horcruxes down.

Harry was sprinting back towards the trapdoor, the cup and locket clutched in his left hand and his wand in his right, before he even realised that his feet were moving. He'd wasted time getting rid of a Horcrux that he could have come back for, Harry knew, but he also felt far more ready to face the next two hours – which could be the last two hours of his life, if it all went sour – after scoring such a huge point against Voldemort.

He'd proven to himself in one charm that he _could_ destroy the Horcruxes. When it came down to it, that confidence might be the difference between being alive two and a half hours from that moment in time or… well, or _not_.

Harry used levitation magic to boost himself back up out of the hole left by the open trap door. It was exhausting, but Harry had yet to figure out any other way of getting out without the use of a broom. Ron and Hermione had used the brooms that were supplied in the key room to get out the first time, so they weren't there to be used anymore. That was rather a pity, since Harry really wished he had a broom handy. He needed to get to the Apparition point as soon as possible, but he would have to get outside before he could summon his Nimbus from the Gryffindor Tower.

"You'll have to stay here," Harry told Sirius, who was still waiting in dog form by the trap door for Harry's return. "I can't take you with me. They know who you are, and you aren't protected from attack like I am. They'll kill you on sight if they can, for no other reason than that it would weaken me."

Sirius didn't seem particularly pleased by this, but he stopped at the entrance to the castle, refraining from following Harry outside. As the dog watched Harry's broom zoom magically toward them, Harry thought he saw understanding in those dark canine eyes. Or, at least, he hoped he did.

* * *

Harry really hated that cave. He'd been there and seen it all far too many times for his taste. He hated the sight of the cliff jutting up into the night, and the rock he had to bleed on each time in order to enter. He hated that it was shrouded in perpetual darkness but for the annoying green glow coming from inside that abhorrent basin, and he hated that huge dark lake and the thought of the hundreds of bodies that lurked beneath its surface. They had all disappeared from sight now that they were no longer needed to keep Dumbledore in his place. Most of all, though, he hated the fact that there were Death Eaters in the cave, and that he had to go inside and be near them if he wanted to live.

He wasn't ready.

He had to be ready.

When he entered, it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, for the small jets of light omitted by the four wands inside the cave barely made a dent in the darkness. After a few moments, he could make out Bellatrix Lestrange, one of the men who'd been ready to see him dead up on the battlements when the Death Eaters had invaded Hogwarts, and a young man who looked barely older than Harry himself. Harry had never seen him before, so he assumed he was a new recruit, probably just out of Durmstrang.

"Has wee little Potter lost his way?"

"I'm exactly where I mean to be," Harry returned. Even though he'd made it to the cave in very little time, he still didn't feel comfortable wasting time bickering with Bellatrix.

"Then has he lost his mind, I wonder?" Bellatrix cackled. "If the little baby had a brain, he would know that he should be crying for mercy right now."

Harry glared at her, though he was well aware that the blackened state of the cave meant she probably couldn't tell what expression he had on his face. Not that he actually believed she would care, in her state of mind. "You can't hurt me. The Vow said that I would be allowed to come, give you the Horcruxes and return back to Hogwarts without being harmed."

Bellatrix laughed again. The older man chimed in, though Harry had to admit that he, at least, sounded a great deal saner than the Lestrange woman. That wasn't a big accomplishment, really, but he supposed it had to count for something.

"You were right, Bellatrix," the man said. "He must be getting through school on celebrity alone, unless the Hogwarts standard has dropped significantly since I was there."

Bellatrix sneered. "Oh, it has, though. That Muggle-lover, Dumbledore, is the worst thing that ever happened to Hogwarts. The mighty Slytherin house is all that's left of the old ways, and Lucius says Mudbloods are squirming their way in even there." Bellatrix suddenly showed her teeth in a terrifying leer. "But old Dumbly won't be a problem anymore, will he?"

Harry just barely stopped himself from lunging at her.

"I'm going to kill you," Harry said as calmly as he could manage, but it was said through clenched teeth. He rather thought that might have given away the fact that he was using tremendous effort to reign himself in. "Right after I put that snake you call 'Master' in the ground, I'm coming after you."

This time it was the young man who laughed. "You English," he said, obviously amused at Harry's expense. His accent was surprisingly negligible. "You never know when to close your mouths."

Bellatrix nodded zealously. "You really should be quiet, ickle Potter. You're making silly threats that you can't follow up on, since you'll very soon be… what was it you said? 'In the ground'? I'd give it maybe an hour and a half at most. I'm not sure if I want to know the exact time so I can be waiting for it, or not know and be surprised. I do so like surprises!"

"You're mad," Harry breathed. "Lucius made his Vow on behalf of all of the Death Eaters. If you hurt me now, you die. You might even all die, though I'm really not sure exactly how it works. It might actually be worth it, if it would take out all of you miserable bastards."

"Oooh, isn't ickle Potter _brave_?" cooed Bellatrix.

"We don't have to hurt you," the older man explained, sounding exasperated with Bellatrix and Harry both, as if they were both of a far inferior level of intelligence than him. Since Harry was fairly certain he was missing something key, he couldn't really contradict such an opinion. "We just have to wait. If you don't give us the Horcruxes within the two hours, you die. If we don't let you give us the Horcruxes…"

Harry's jaw dropped. Missing out on something important, indeed. "You can't _do_ that!"

"Why?" the man asked, his eyes glinting in a taunting manner. "Because it's not _fair_?"

"The little baby is out of his depth, playing with the big boys," Bellatrix mocked him. "Little babies shouldn't get involved in adult magic. They could get burned."

"You'll fall down dead in just over an hour, I'd say," the man guessed, glancing at his pocket watch, though Harry wasn't sure whether the gesture was merely for effect or not, because it seemed unlikely the Death Eater could actually know when exactly Harry had acquired the locket, or make out the display on the watch face in the dark. "Then we take the cup and locket from your cooling body and take you back to the Dark Lord to prove that you are dead. He will be so pleased. His two enemies killed within a week. He'll be running the wizarding world in no time."

Harry would have liked to have thought up some witty retort, but he really wasn't entirely sure he could actually use his tongue at that point. It, like the rest of him, seemed to be frozen in shock.

He was going to die. There was no way around it. Merlin, he hadn't even said goodbye to Ron and Hermione, or Sirius, really, for that matter.

He couldn't die yet. There had to be something he could do to save himself.

"_Imperio_!" Harry cried desperately. It hardly mattered to him in that moment that he had just earned himself life in Azkaban, should the Ministry ever find out.

The wizard who had just been rambling at him stopped moving, as if waiting along with Harry to see if the spell was going to work. Harry wanted so badly for it to work that he knew before the words even formed themselves that it was going to work. It had to.

The Death Eater's eyes turned glassy. Harry mentally pushed the order to take the goblet and locket from his hand into the other man's mind. The Death Eater took half a step, hesitated and seemed to almost stumble. Then it was over. The connection between Harry's and the other man's minds was broken.

"You can't think I'm so weak-willed as to be able to be held by a wizard inexperienced in the Unforgivables."

Harry had hoped exactly that, actually, but he didn't say so. But then, there was another person in the room who wasn't anything like as strong as the man he had just challenged.

Harry swivelled quickly to face the young Death Eater and recast the curse. Once again it caught him in Harry's mental web. However, much to Harry's relief, this time the spell held, and for a long moment it seemed that the young man was going to take the Horcruxes.

The last thing Harry expected was to be hit with a petrifying hex from the side. He had completely forgotten for a moment that there were two other armed and competent Death Eaters in the room, fully willing and able to stop him if the young man couldn't do so himself. Harry lost his hold on the Death Eater at the same moment as his body snapped straight and board-like, and he fell to the ground, jarring his back painfully.

"Now, now, ickle baby, that wasn't very nice."

"It seems you just failed your test, Hoskins," the older man said, though unlike Bellatrix he wasn't addressing Harry. "The Dark Lord will deal with you in due time."

Harry thought he saw real fear in the young man's eyes at that statement. He wished that he could speak so that there might be a way of bribing the young Death Eater – no, probably not a Death Eater quite yet, from the sounds of it – into helping him by offering him protection against Voldemort. That, however, was not to be the case.

It couldn't have taken more than twenty or thirty minutes of the Death Eaters standing around and Harry lying stiff on the ground, all of them waiting for Harry to eventually die, until Bellatrix eventually got restless. She seemed to be itching for a fight, and throwing insults at Harry when he was unable to react had not kept her happy for very long. Eventually, her eyes went to the young man, Hoskins, looking over him in a considering sort of way.

Harry decided that being subjected to the screaming and begging of another human being, even a would-be Death Eater, without being able to do anything to stop it or, at the very least, block it out was a thousand times worse than having Bellatrix taunt him. If he was going to die, he wished it would just hurry up and happen so that he could be freed from the heart-rending sounds. Preferably, he would die while Bellatrix's attention was turned away from him, so that at least she wouldn't get the satisfaction of seeing the life leave his body.

He was going to die with only Death Eaters as his final company. That was a sad thought, if anything was. He was never going to see his friends again. They would probably be joining him soon enough, though, because who would kill Voldemort if Harry wasn't there to fulfil the prophecy?

But then, if the prophecy was true, how could he possibly die right then? Voldemort was meant to kill him, or the other way around. If an Unbreakable Vow with Lucius killed him, that could never come true. Maybe Hermione had been right when she'd said that Divination was dodgy. Thinking about it was making his head spin, though it was still better than having nothing better to focus on than Hoskings' torture.

It couldn't be that long now, Harry thought to himself. He couldn't really keep track of time particularly well when he was more interested in doing everything in his power to block out the screams and pitiful crying. However, he had a feeling that he couldn't have more than maybe half an hour left. That seemed like mere seconds in the grand scheme of things, and yet, that was the rest of his life. It should have felt like years. It should have _been_ years. It just wasn't fair.

But then, as the Death Eater had alluded to earlier, just because something wasn't fair didn't make a difference to the fact that it was happening.

Then he couldn't hear the screams anymore, and for one horrifying moment Harry thought that he had miscalculated and he was dying. It couldn't end just like that though, could it? Wasn't his life meant to flash before his eyes? Shouldn't there have been angels singing, or at least some Dementor-like creature with a scythe coming after him? Maybe those people who'd told him such things didn't really know. But then, how would they? It wasn't as if they'd ever died.

It wasn't until he heard a triumphant cry of, "They're down! Get Harry!" that Harry realised that he was probably still alive. He didn't think that his last ever hallucination would have featured this situation. Visions of naked Veelas all in a row, maybe, or perhaps just standing over Voldemort's dead body with the rest of the wizarding world cheering as if he'd just caught the snitch in the Quidditch World Cup final. Not those words, though. And definitely not the face of Bill Weasley looming before him. The redhead had a gash across his cheek that looked like it had been attained in a magical struggle. Blood seeped down his face from the open wound.

"Hey there, Harry," Bill said as he freed him from the spell he was under and helped him into a sitting position. From there Harry could see what looked like most of the Order milling around the small section of the cave beside the lake. "All right?"

"No," Harry whispered. "I'm going to die." He couldn't even tell Bill why. His chest, throat and eyes all burned as tears threatened to fall. The whole Order was going to watch him die and not be able to do a thing to stop it. He hoped that Mrs Weasley hadn't come along, or Ron or Hermione. He thought he really would break down if he knew that they were going to see…

He hadn't even said a proper goodbye to his godfather, he remembered once more. What would Sirius do without Harry there?

Bill frowned and turned towards the others. "Oi! They're all unconscious. Hurry up and tell him he can come in!"

Harry had no idea what Bill was talking about, though he did feel slightly miffed that he was being ignored in what could be his dying moments. He knew he'd always said he didn't like getting a lot of attention, but still…

But then Harry saw yet another person come through the entrance of the cave and beeline straight for where he sat with Bill.

"Snape," he breathed, his eyes narrowing.

"If I'm going to risk my life for your sorry hide, Potter, you will damn well call me 'sir'," Snape barked at him.

"Fuck you, _sir_," Harry replied.

"Harry," another person called, and Harry looked away from Snape to see Remus Lupin just over the ex-teacher's shoulder. "It's all right. He's the one who told us you were here. You need to give him the locket and cup, and then the Vow will be over."

Harry glared at Snape, stubbornly refusing to move. He couldn't trust the man who'd killed Dumbledore.

"Potter, don't be a complete imbecile," Snape sighed. "Even if I was a loyal Death Eater, I am surrounded by people who would gladly curse me if I tried to disappear with your precious keepsakes. Now hand them over."

Harry didn't like it, but he had to admit that what Snape had said made a lot of sense. He'd never admit that out loud, though. Over his dead body, as it were.

He reached out and offered the two Horcruxes to Snape, who also reached out to take them. Snape studied the items for a moment before handing them back to Harry.

"At least you brought the real Horcruxes. I fully expected you to mess it up and find fake Horcruxes. Typical Gryffindor bravery before brains."

"I _hate_ you," Harry hissed as he snatched the locket and cup back.

"The feeling is mutual, Potter, let me assure you. However, I am on your side. I told you before we left for St Mungo's –"

Harry's swinging fist was caught by Bill before it could connect with Snape's jaw.

"I don't care if you're on our side or not!" Harry continued, straining against Bill's grip. "Yeah, so you made an Unbreakable Vow to kill Dumbledore. I'm not so stupid that I couldn't figure that out." Harry had, in fact, spent a lot of time thinking about just that while he'd been lying about uselessly and mourning. "That doesn't matter to me, though. You're _dirt_. Don't come in here and think that you can talk to me like you're still my teacher. I didn't respect you even when you were! Get the hell out of here before I kill you where you stand."

"Harry!" one of the Order members exclaimed, shocked.

"You couldn't successfully curse me if I tied myself up and then threw away my wand," Snape taunted, but then turned his back and left the cave. Harry had expected Snape to curse him into silence, at the very least. His old teacher had never been a man with a particularly even temper. For once, however, he appeared to have been able to restrain himself.

"Want to test that?" Harry whispered, still spoiling for a fight regardless of Snape's already obvious lack of reaction to him. He was certain Snape heard him regardless of his lack of volume. He'd always seemed to have excellent hearing, which had resulted in Harry finding trouble numerous times since arriving at Hogwarts. The Death Eater, however, didn't turn around or in any way acknowledge that Harry had spoken.

Only once Snape was well and truly out of the cave did Bill let him go. Harry sagged slightly, but didn't fall.

"Come on, Harry," Kingsley Shacklebolt said. "Let's get you back to Hogwarts and this lot to Azkaban before _their_ reinforcements decide to show up."

Azkaban. Oh Merlin. Now that the Unbreakable Vow and Horcrux dilemma was at least partly over, there was still one more big consideration for Harry to address. There was an innocent man in Azkaban, waiting for him to do something about it. He was the only one who could. Harry groaned under his breath. As Sirius had told him, he'd waited for weeks already. He could wait another hour or so while Harry got himself and his godfather sorted out.


	9. Chapter 9

**********************CHAPTER NINE**  
  
It took twenty minutes of sitting around in the Headmaster's office – well, the Headmistress's now, since McGonagall had taken over the post – before the attention was no longer solely on Harry and he felt safe to attempt to sneak off to the Gryffindor Tower. He had to get Sirius out of here before Lupin had a chance to see him. Harry had little doubt that Remus would recognise his childhood friend even if he was in his Animagus form. Neither Harry nor Sirius could risk that until Harry had had a chance to explain the truth of the situation to him.

It was Snape leaving that finally created a diversion. The Death Eater claimed that his mark was burning. If the searing pain in Harry's scar was anything to go by, he didn't doubt it. Voldemort was angry. No, scratch that. His plans had been foiled and some of his key Death Eaters had been taken into custody. Voldemort would be _furious_. Harry didn't envy Snape the task of reporting to the enraged Dark Lord, though Snape seemed certain, at least, that there was no way that Voldemort could know what had actually happened in that cave. Even if the Death Eaters they'd caught had been able to tell someone what they saw, the Order had made certain that Snape stayed well out of sight until the other Death Eaters were all unconscious. Voldemort couldn't know that Snape had betrayed him. That was something, at least.

Harry left the room as soon as he was sure that Snape wasn't going to die on his behalf, not even really sure why he cared. He'd been ready to kill the man himself not long ago. Harry supposed he'd just had enough of people being killed because of his mistakes. There was enough guilt in his life without adding a fresh serving on top of it all.

Sirius, still in his dog form, was waiting for him in the Gryffindor Tower, with two frantic Gryffindors sitting near him.

"Oh, Harry!" Hermione exclaimed and ran to hug him. Ron, always the least emotionally expressive of them, simply thumped Harry on the back in a mixture of relief and congratulations.

"You had us worried, mate," Ron said.

Hermione seemed too overwhelmed that he was all right to start berating him, at least for the moment.

"Sorry. Everything's all right now, though. As all right as it can be, at least."

"We told Snape," Hermione said in a rush.

Harry frowned at her.

"Your dog showed up in the tower, so we knew that you must have come back to Hogwarts, which meant that you'd found whatever you were looking for. Since we couldn't find you, we knew you must have gone to the Death Eaters alone."

"Don't do that again," Ron added. "I don't care if the Death Eaters told you not to bring anyone else along or whatever. What if there'd been a huge crowd of them waiting for you? You should always take backup."

"Exactly," Hermione agreed. "We didn't know what to do, though, because no one in the Order knew the actual location of where you had to meet them. Except Snape, that is. So we decided that the worst that could happen was that he let Voldemort know you were at the cave, and the Death Eaters that were there could have done that just as easily if they'd wanted to. So we sent an owl off to Snape asking for help."

"He contacted the Order," Harry said quietly. "They saved me, and Snape helped me complete the Vow. So I suppose I have to thank you…" Harry trailed off. "Hang on, does that mean I owe him a life debt now?"

"They're complicated," Ron said. "No one knows that a life debt has been invoked until they're compelled to help the subject of the debt. Most times it's fairly obvious, though. I mean, if one bloke saves another from being toasted by a dragon, you're not likely to question that he owes the other guy his life, are you?"

Harry was quite stunned that it was Ron who was practically giving a lecture about something. It seemed much more Hermione's field. But then, Ron had grown up in the wizarding world. He'd had much more opportunity to have this kind of thing explained to him. Even Hermione's thirst for knowledge couldn't lead her to answers if she wasn't likely to think to ask the relevant questions.

"Well," Harry sighed, "I guess we'll see. Just one more reason to hate the bastard, I suppose."

"But Harry," Hermione began uncertainly, "he helped the Order. I don't know what exactly happened with Dumbledore, but he's obviously on our side."

Harry snorted. "Doesn't make him any less of an evil git. _I_ know what happened with Dumbledore. Snape thought he should have been 'put out of his misery'. He told me so himself! He said I should have done it back in the cave, before the whole thing could really get started. I don't care if Dumbledore _begged_ him to do it; it's still murder. He didn't even give the Healers a proper chance to try to heal him! He was too busy worrying about himself."

"Harry –"

"Nothing's going to change my mind about him," Harry interrupted stubbornly.

"That's all right," Ron said in a placating tone of voice. "I still think he's a right git, no matter whether he murdered Dumbledore or not. We've known that since we met him, really."

Ron meant it to be reassuring, Harry knew. However, it only really served to show how far apart Harry really was from his friends right then. He loved them, really, but what he needed right then was someone who actually _understood_.

"Thanks, Ron," Harry eventually sighed half-heartedly. "I really appreciate it. And I'm glad that you're both on my side. But you'll have to be there for me from a distance for a while. I have to leave Hogwarts, and not just for the summer."

"Where are you going? Not back to the Dursleys, surely?" Ron asked, his forehead creasing in confusion.

Dumbledore had wanted that, of course. However, when Dumbledore had said that, Harry doubted that he could have predicted the exact events that had occurred. Who would have guessed, if they knew all of the facts of the situation, that Harry would be running off to find ways to kill the Dark Lord with Sirius Black, of all people, who most people thought was Voldemort's number one supporter?

"No, not there," Harry admitted. He wasn't welcome there anymore, after all. "I just need to get away. I need to go somewhere where I can concentrate on what's coming. I have two Horcruxes to destroy, another one to find and a Dark Lord to kill. I can't do all of that at Hogwarts."

"Can't you stay for just a little while longer, though?" Hermione asked. "You really should get some rest while you can."

"Yeah, you look like death heated up," Ron chimed in, which earned him a glare from Hermione and an amused but tired smile from Harry.

"Or we could come with you," Hermione suggested. "You'll probably need someone to help out with research."

She sounded so hopeful. Harry hated to hurt her, or Ron for that matter, but it had to be done.

"I'm sorry. I don't think you can help me this time. But, well, don't worry about me. I have someone who can. I'll be fine."

Harry might have been among the bravest of the Gryffindors, which was saying a lot in a house filled with students sorted primarily for their valour, but right at that moment he was scared that if he looked, he would see a look of hurt on Hermione's face, and a look of sad incomprehension that he was sure would be adorning Ron's.

He turned on his heel and fled like a coward, the dog bounding after him.

Sirius did not seem to want to leave the school willingly, but after Harry had repeatedly assured him that he'd meet him at the Black house in an hour or two, the animal took off into the darkness. Harry himself had some business to take care of first.

* * *

"I didn't know you owned a dog."

That hadn't been exactly what Harry had expected to be the first words out of Remus Lupin's mouth when he ran into him not far from what was now Headmistress McGonagall's office.

"I don't," Harry said without thinking.

"Oh? Severus told me that your friends led him to believe that they knew you'd been into the school again because your dog had suddenly returned. I was under the impression that you owned an owl, and unless the rules have changed quite a bit since I attended here, Hogwarts students are only allowed one pet. And not a dog, at that."

Harry sighed, exasperated. "I own an owl. I don't actually own the dog. Or, at least, I didn't own him until he latched on to me when I was looking for the locket." Harry steeled himself. He had to tell the story. He'd come back into the school for the sole purpose of telling someone, preferably Lupin, that there was an innocent man in Azkaban in Sirius's place. Well, here they both were. Lupin deserved to know the whole story, as well. He should know that his friend was innocent, at least of most of the crimes of which he'd been accused.

"Actually, I came up here to tell you something. It involves the dog."

From the way Lupin's eyebrows rose practically into his grey-speckled fall of hair, it appeared to Harry that he was interested. Harry felt a wave of relief as he realised that he was free to tell the story now that the Vow had been fulfilled. There would be no more worrying about dropping dead just because he'd said the wrong thing.

"I went to Azkaban, like you suggested," he began hesitantly. "I had intended on just looking for the Horcrux and then leaving, but then the men guarding the boats to the prison said something about it being against the rules to seek revenge against the prisoners when I said that I wanted to visit Sirius Black. I couldn't just leave it alone after that."

"Oh, Harry, you didn't…" Lupin's voice was pleading, but at the same time Harry could tell that he already knew the truth and was resigned to it. He'd taken the risk that it would happen the moment he told Harry how to get into Azkaban.

"I did. I had to. Funny thing, though. The person in the cell was blonde and young. He was several years ahead of me at school. I know this because I recognised him."

"You must have gone to the wrong cell. That isn't Sirius Black."

"No, it isn't," Harry agreed. "But I went to the right cell. The man in the cell didn't really belong there. He's innocent of any crime. He'll have to be retrieved as soon as possible, and I'll need you to help me with that. The Death Eaters put him there as a diversion so that they could break the real Sirius Black out."

"What?" Remus gasped. "You mean he's escaped? But –" A sudden look of understanding flashed across Remus's face. "The dog! Harry –"

"I know."

"What do you mean? You couldn't possibly –"

"I used magic in Azkaban without thinking. The Dementors attacked me. I don't know how to perform the spell to drive them off, yet they didn't suck out my soul. The dog, which I'd taken along with me hidden under my invisibility cloak, had turned into a man, and he took my wand and cast the spell for me even as I was passing out. He saved my life.

"It took me a while to figure out who he was. I attacked him; yes, I know what he was accused of. I wanted to kill him. He eventually got his story out. It took a while for my mind to really wrap itself around the whole thing. It probably helped that I'd already spent a fair bit of time with him when he was a dog without him hurting me or doing anything other than _help_ me, but I believe it. It makes sense."

Lupin shook his head. "You can't believe anything he says. He's proficient in lying, we always knew that. We never would have pulled off half as many pranks as we did in school if he wasn't able to cover all our backs. But we never thought that he could lie so well to _us_, his closest friends. He fooled _James_, and they were closer than brothers. He could so easily fool you. You don't even know him."

Harry shook his head. "If he was a loyal Death Eater, he would have been broken out when the rest were a year ago, rather than just recently. His story adds up. He was broken out and put under the Imperius Curse so that he would lead me to the locket, because Voldemort knew that his brother had taken it and suspected that it was hidden away in the Black house. Only the Head of the House of Black could get into the house, and Sirius resisted the Imperius when the Death Eaters tried to order him to get them inside. When I mentioned that I was looking for a man named Black, though, the dog saw no reason to resist. He wanted to help me get what I wanted, so he went along with it. He claims he broke the curse later, though, when I told him to stay away from me even though I obviously needed someone to take care of me. That apparently went against what he wanted."

"He betrayed your parents, Harry."

"No, he didn't. He killed Peter Pettigrew because _he_ betrayed my parents. At the same time, he got rid of any chance he had to have his name cleared. Pettigrew, my parents and Sirius were the only ones who knew that they'd swapped." Harry gazed at Lupin apologetically. "They suspected you. That's why they didn't tell you."

Lupin looked thoughtful. "Peter? He was always weaker than the rest of us…"

"Sirius told me that that's why they changed. They thought that Voldemort would never suspect him because he was weak. The same qualities must have made him the perfect spy."

Lupin shook his head slowly. "But why would Sirius do that, if it's true? Why not tell the Aurors, or Dumbledore, what really happened? They could have tracked down Peter and brought him to justice, and Sirius could have kept from becoming a murderer."

"He was a rat, wasn't he? I'm guessing that once Pettigrew went into hiding, he could stay hidden. How would the Ministry ever track down one seemingly-ordinary rat? Besides, as much as I'm beginning to like him, Sirius doesn't strike me as the most stable individual, and I don't think that that can all be attributed to the effects of Azkaban. I'm guessing he wanted revenge bad enough to not think about the consequences. Besides, a lot of people think that there are things that are worth killing over just as much as there are things worth dying for."

"Yes," Lupin agreed. "That sounds just like the Sirius we knew. He loved James, and you and Lily, like nothing else in his life. You all were his family."

Harry almost glowed at the thought of it. Family. Sirius had obviously never been close to _his_ blood relatives, either. They seemed even worse than the Dursleys, if possible, though they took the exact opposite stance on the Magic versus Muggle debate. But now the Blacks were gone, and Harry wouldn't ever have to see the Dursleys again.

He and Sirius could be each other's family now.

After a long pause of thought, Lupin's face fell into a horrified kind of grimace. "If it's true, that means that he's spent fifteen years in Azkaban when he was innocent, or at least mostly innocent."

Harry nodded. "And they would put him straight back in there if they ever caught him. Even if they believed his story, he still killed Pettigrew. Sirius has assured me that what he did would be considered murder under the law, with no available defences. If it was my call, I think I'd pardon him. Sometimes murder is... necessary."

Lupin must have picked up on the dark look on Harry's face.

"Harry, even if you kill Voldemort, that won't be murder," Lupin assured him with an apprehensive frown.

"So Sirius said. But I wasn't referring to Voldemort."

Lupin looked even more wary then. "Harry, you don't really want to kill Snape." It wasn't even phrased as a question. Frankly, that annoyed Harry quite a bit. He liked Lupin, but the man didn't know him well enough to be presuming what he wanted in life.

"Honestly, I don't know," he admitted. "It scares me that I don't know whether I have that kind of darkness in me. I think that I would take the chance to kill Bellatrix Lestrange. She's an evil and insane bitch, and she killed Tonks. Most of all, though, it would be self-defence, since I can't imagine ever being in a room with her when she wasn't trying to kill me. I'm not worried about myself when I think about that; it's not safe for anyone to have her alive, so really I'd just be protecting the world from her. But Snape… I can't make the same sorts of arguments. He's dark, but he's not insane and there's certainly a chance that he's not completely evil. He's not likely to kill just for the fun of it. I'd be killing him in cold blood. And yet, I've thought about it non-stop since he killed Dumbledore. Does that make me dark?"

"No," Lupin said. "Thinking it doesn't. Acting on it would. Look, I'm going to trust you with something, because I think it will help you understand, and I think you ought to know who I really am. I hope that it doesn't change everything that we've been through… I'm a werewolf, Harry."

Lupin paused to gauge Harry's reaction. He looked afraid that Harry would suddenly spring upon him wanting his blood, much like he had done to Sirius when he'd first realised the man's true identity. Or maybe that Harry would run screaming in the other direction.

Instead, Harry merely said, "Er, I kinda know. Sirius let it slip when he was telling me about the Animagus thing. He was terribly sorry about that, by the way."

"Oh," Lupin said, looking flustered. "Wow. Well then. Well. The point is, that means that once a month I think about ripping people to shreds, and not just while I'm actually in wolf form. Sometimes straight before the moon is full those thoughts will come to me. I don't act on them, though. I couldn't live with myself if I did.

"I feel a bit like Dumbledore saying this, really, but it's our actions that define us. You aren't dark unless you go through with the dark sorts of thoughts that you might think of now and then."

"What if I do? What if I can't control myself?"

Lupin looked a little worried for a moment longer, but then he steeled his expression. "Harry, if you were the kind of person who would go around killing people on a whim, even if you thought that they deserved it, you wouldn't be fighting against Voldemort. You'd have joined him by now. You've been exposed to a lot more murder and torture than most, so you naturally think more about the possibility. But you're only sixteen. I don't think that you really know what you want quite yet, and I'm confident that when you figure it out, it will be the right thing."

Harry shuddered. "I hope so. I hope this feeling goes away soon. I don't like being filled with rage at just the thought of a person. Especially since it's Snape. He's saved my life heaps of times over the years. I shouldn't want to kill him. I don't even know if I could. I don't want to find out."

Lupin smiled, finally. "Well, there you have it. That doesn't sound too dark to me. You can't really want to kill him if you've got that kind of attitude toward it."

Harry just shrugged. "I hope I don't, at least. I don't think I want to stick around to find out. He'll be back here eventually, I'm betting and that means that I would have to face him again. It's too soon for that. That's one of the reasons I have to go. I'm going to stay with Sirius so that we can work on destroying the … the objects … oh, fuck it."

Harry gave Lupin a pleading look. "Promise me you won't tell a soul what I'm going to tell you now. You trusted me with your secret, now I have to be able to trust you. The more people that I know I can trust with this, the better, but I don't feel comfortable with the Order at large knowing. If it gets back to Voldemort that I know as much as I do… well. Just promise me, please."

"Harry, of course. You can trust me."

Harry nodded, and then summed up the Horcruxes, to Lupin's wide-eyed horror.

"That leaves one more," Harry said. "Dumbledore suspected Nagini, Voldemort's snake. I think I might have to do some more research or something to be sure. If it is Nagini, when I attempt to destroy her, I'll have to be ready to attempt to kill Voldemort himself as well, since wherever she is, he'll be.

"I need to go stay with Sirius so that I can get away from everyone else so that I can concentrate, and so I can use the Black library for research. Sirius himself was a great help with transfiguring the cup back into its original form, as well, so I'm hoping he can help me with the rest."

Lupin nodded. "So you'll be going soon?"

"Now, actually. Or as soon as we're done here."

"I thought you might say that," Lupin replied. "I'm coming with you."

Harry frowned. "No. You have things to do for the Order, I'm sure. The werewolves are getting out of hand. If at all possible, you should be working with them, either to save as many of them as possible, or to infiltrate the pack and spy for us." Harry paused uncertainly. "Er, that is, unless you don't want to put yourself at that kind of risk. That would be completely understandable, of course."

"I already am attempting that kind of work under Dumbledore's orders," Lupin interrupted Harry's rambling with a smile. "I'm well and truly willing to put myself at risk. But I meant only that I'm coming with you now, just for a while. I need to see Sirius with my own eyes, not to mention have a bit of a chat with him. I need to make sure you're safe. I should be able to judge his state of mind better than you can, having known him for much longer than you. I won't leave you with him unless I can be sure of his motives."

Harry would have liked to have argued, but he had a feeling it wouldn't get him very far. Remus Lupin seemed as stubborn as he was, if not more so. Harry didn't have hours to spend arguing over it, especially when he couldn't be sure that the man wouldn't just find a way to follow him anyway.

"Fine. There's nothing I need from here that I haven't already taken to the house; that's where I was staying after Dumbledore died."

"What house?" Lupin asked, confused.

Harry shrugged. "The Black house."

Lupin seemed taken aback. "Sirius said he'd never go back there. I mean, I understand that he took you there to get your Horcrux, but that he stayed there…"

Harry bit his lip. "That would be my fault. I was in shock after Dumbledore died. I wouldn't even get out of bed for food and stuff unless he forced me to. I don't think he had time to go house shopping. I think it was just meant to be temporary, though. Maybe we'll move places soon."

Lupin frowned. "You'll tell me if you do, won't you?"

Harry nodded, rolling his eyes. "Of course. Everything else aside, I'm not sure that I can talk to other more high-profile members the Order directly; Voldemort will likely be watching for that. You might have to get the news to them for me if necessary."

"I can do that." Lupin paused and laughed in an almost self-depreciating kind of way. "After all, it makes perfect sense to go through seven years of education at one of the best magical schools in the world simply to become a message boy."

Harry took that comment with the intended grain of salt. At least, he hoped it was intended.


	10. Chapter 10

**************************CHAPTER TEN**  
  
"Sirius?" Harry called through the door.

He rang the doorbell, knocked on the wood several times, and still there was nothing.

"Sirius, it's Harry and –"

The door swung open before Harry could finish his sentence and Sirius grinned at him. The smile in combination with the fact that Sirius seemed to be freshly washed had the effect of making him look much, much younger. Take off a few further years and Harry could imagine a young man who might have been friends with his parents. He looked… dashing, though still a little unkempt. Not that Harry could complain about other people having messy appearances.

Harry felt Lupin move up closer behind him, though he was still obscured from Sirius's view by the door. Harry bit his lip with anxiety. He'd intended to warn Sirius that they had company so that he'd at least have had the option of composing himself before he answered, or simply not answering at all. What if he didn't want to see Remus?

"Sorry, Harry, had to make sure it was you before I opened up, and I couldn't exactly answer to my name until I knew that, could I? What's wrong?"

Harry supposed he must have looked very uncomfortable.

"Um…" he started, and then simply stepped aside slightly, reaching out and pushing the door all the way open.

"Remus," Sirius breathed as his gaze fell on his old friend.

"Sirius," Lupin returned. However, where Harry had expected a warm welcome, or perhaps even a manly hug, the tone of that word was curt and spoken in what was almost a growl. Harry glanced over at the other man to see that Lupin's wand was raised and pointed at Sirius's chest.

"Give me a reason, Sirius. I swear, if you've put a Confundus Charm or something on Harry and made him believe that you're on his side, or that you love him, or whatever your sick mind thinks up, the Dementors will seem like paradise compared to me!"

Harry could feel that his eyes were wide. "You said that you trusted me! You acted like you believed me."

Lupin didn't take his eyes off Sirius, but his voice softened slightly. "Harry, I want to believe you, I really do, but I have to be sure. If Sirius is as innocent as he's said he is, he'll understand that I'm only looking out for you. By the way, you really ought to answer the door with a wand in hand, Sirius. It's just common sense when everyone in the wizarding world would love to have a go at you. Some escaped convict you make."

"Merlin, Remus, please believe me. I would never have hurt James and Lily or Harry. Peter –"

"Harry's told me your story," Lupin cut him off. With his spare hand he reached into his robes and withdrew a small vial filled with clear liquid. Harry had seen that before. He'd even been threatened with it. _Merlin_, how he hated Snape.

"There's no point in repeating it all to me unless you're willing to certify the truth of it."

Sirius pursed his lips. "Fine. I get it. There's no other way. Only, could we do this inside?"

"Where your wand is waiting?" Remus scoffed.

"Just inside the door if you like. Veritaserum makes me a bit dizzy, is all, and I think I'd draw a bit more attention than I'd like if I toppled over on the street in broad daylight. It's a bit early to be quite that wasted."

"Fine," Lupin barked. "But know that I won't hesitate. As far as I'm concerned right now, you killed my best friends. My _family_. Don't push me."

Sirius nodded slightly. "All right. Hands on my head, then. Like a criminal. I certainly know the drill now, at least."

If the situation hadn't been so dire, Harry might have laughed. As it was, he followed the two wizards inside, shutting the door after him. He finally thought to withdraw his own wand, just in case.

"You'll have to administer it, Remus. I'm guessing you won't trust me to do it, and Harry's apparently _Confounded_, so –"

"So enough chatter," Lupin finished the thought. "Let's get this over with. Open up."

Sirius did so and let Lupin reach over and place a few drops under his tongue.

"Right," Lupin said, self-satisfied. He steadied his wand on Sirius once more. "I'm sorry about this if you really are innocent, but I have to make sure it's working. Who was the first person you had sex with?"

"You," Sirius said immediately, and then glared at Remus.

Harry's eyes darted back and forward between them. He was pretty certain he could have caught dragonflies in his mouth.

Lupin smiled almost indulgently. For all his shock, it put Harry at ease a little.

"Right. 'I've already done my experimentation', indeed. You liar. You'd do anything to get laid." Lupin then appeared to remember Harry was in the room. His eyes darted to the young man for the first time since Sirius had opened the door. "Er, so. Embarrassing question that you never would have answered truthfully if the Veritaserum wasn't working: check. Moving on.

"Who was Lily and James Potter's Secret Keeper?"

"Peter Pettigrew." Sirius looked extremely glad to get that out of the way.

Lupin nodded, biting his lip. His wand flagged a little.

"Did you betray Lily and James to Lord Voldemort?"

"No."

"Were you ever in league with Voldemort?"

"No."

"Have you lied to Harry at any point during his stay with you?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Oh, Merlin. Sirius."

Harry had barely even heard the clatter of a wand hitting the ground when he realised that Lupin had practically leapt at Sirius.

"You stupid idiot! Why did you swap Secret Keepers?"

"I thought Voldemort would come after me and Peter would be safe. I just wanted to know that Lily and James would be safe. Instead, I fucked up and now they're dead and it's my fault."

"No, it's Peter's fault. Merlin, his Animagus was a bloody rat! Why did that not ring an alarm bell or two? Don't answer that," Remus said as Sirius opened his mouth. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"We thought you were the spy. Dumbledore had you spending time with the werewolves. We were worried that you'd found something there that we couldn't give you."

"I thought you must have been bad-mouthing me to Lily and James and Peter, and that was why we stopped spending so much time together. Even then, I would have taken what little I got from you to anything Fenrir's little band of murders could offer any time."

Harry suddenly felt like he was intruding. He also felt strange when he looked at the two men so close together, Lupin's arm around Sirius's back. They had slept together. The thought sent a pang through him. Harry refused to call it arousal, because that would be too strange. The two men were as old as his father would have been, had seen him when he was a baby. One of them was his godfather, for Merlin's sake!

"I missed you so much," Sirius rasped. "I feel like I've lived centuries without you and James. And even Peter, but, well, good riddance."

"I can't imagine what it must have been like, living a decade and a half with Dementors drawing away every happy thought," Lupin said.

"Like hell, but a thousand times worse," Sirius responded. Harry thought that he might not have admitted to that if he wasn't under Veritaserum, because it seemed to cause Lupin almost physical pain to hear it. "I tried to tell myself that I was innocent, that I didn't betray Lily and James, because it wasn't really a happy thought. It was just the truth, so I thought I could cling to that. But then they kept making me remember that I killed Peter, and I wasn't really innocent at all, so it only partially worked. I think I'm a bit mad."

"You always were," Lupin replied affectionately. "I doubt I'll even notice the difference."

"Er, I think I'm going to go grab some food. I'm starving," Harry said, excusing himself awkwardly but efficiently.

"Wait, Harry!" Lupin called. The man untangled himself from Harry's godfather to turn and properly face him. "I'm sorry I didn't trust you completely. It's just… I see it among all the people you meet. Anyone you open up to in any way generally becomes very attached to you. I'm hardly exempt. I care about you, and not just because of your parents. I didn't want anything to happen to you."

"Oh… er, thanks. I, um, like you, too." Harry choked out.

Sirius grinned at him. "That's my godson. Such a way with words."

"Oh, shut up," Harry grunted back as he turned away in search of sustenance. Secretly, he smiled just a little.

As he was walking away down the hall, trying to be quiet so as not to reawaken the portrait of Sirius's mother, who had only just stopped screaming from when the doorbell had rung and awakened her, Harry heard Lupin say, "So, while you're still under a truth potion, who was your first _kiss_?"

"You. Damn it, Moony! There's such a thing as fair play!"

"I _knew_ you weren't that experienced! You couldn't possibly have kept quiet about as many conquests as you were trying to make me think you'd had."

Harry smiled. He was glad they were getting along. He had a feeling that they needed to be alone for a while, though. There were things that needed to be said that they might not want to say in front of him. Although he would really like to know everything, he would much prefer that they got _everything_ in the real sense of the word out into the open between them to him knowing almost everything. It would be better for both of them. Merlin knew those two had a lot of wounds to heal.

* * *

The Veritaserum wore off long before Lupin left to go back to his spying – or whatever it was he was doing, Harry wasn't sure – for the Order. The two seemed to agree without saying a word that they would keep up their full disclosure regardless, though Harry only heard snippets of their conversation. It was for that reason that Harry wasn't all that sad to see Lupin go. He liked the man, but he wanted to spend time with his godfather now that the immediacy of the threat wasn't there to distract them. He didn't think that was too much to ask.

"So," Harry said eventually. "You and Lupin are together?"

Sirius laughed. "I'm sure he'd prefer it if you called him 'Remus'. And no, not for a long time. We weren't together for long at all even back then, either. We were friends, we both liked other boys, and we lived in the same dormitory. It eventually had to happen, I think. It was experimentation for us both, really, no matter how much I had to tell Remus otherwise for him to eventually agree to sleep with me. I swear he's as much like a woman as anyone I've ever met."

"Oh," Harry said. "So nothing happened just before? When I was gone."

Sirius shrugged. "You know, the usual. We talked, we hugged, I shagged his brains out… Harry, I'm kidding," Sirius added when Harry's eyes bulged out.

"Oh, Merlin, when will you stop scarring me for life? You're my _godfather_!" Harry exclaimed. "It is so weird that you just told me that. And speaking of which, do I even want to ask whether you ever slept with my father?"

"I think you just did. The answer's no, by the way. Even if he wasn't completely, one hundred and ten percent straight, he had his heart set on your mother practically from puberty, whether he knew it or not. And we were far too much alike to have ever had a chance. We would have killed each other on the first date. What works as a friendship doesn't always function so well as a romantic relationship, I've found.

"Besides, he was reasonable-looking, but nothing special enough to risk our friendship over. Remus, on the other hand, was really something. He had those wonderful eyes that I just got lost in …"

Harry cleared his throat. "We have now reached my comfort level."

"And you, of course, have your mother's eyes. They would look so gorgeous if you would just ditch those glasses. And you don't have your father's nose, either, which is a blessing and a half. It always amused me that he mocked Snape's nose all the time when his really wasn't that much better. No, I lie. Nothing's as big and ugly as Snape's nose. But yes. Anyway. Overall, I'd say you're quite a bit fitter than your father. I bet you reel in the ladies with that Quidditch-toned body and those deep green eyes. Or have I misspoken? Perhaps it's the boys that catch your eye, eh?"

Harry stood silent for a moment, simply gaping at his godfather.

"Wow," he eventually said, "see that? That was my comfort zone being breached. Obliterated, even. In fact, if anyone ever finds my comfort zone, please return it – it's lost and it desperately needs to come home."

Sirius grinned. "You're a bit of a prude, Harry Potter. No one would ever mistake you for James in that respect. We couldn't get him to shut up about this and that that he'd done with Lily."

"Sirius, that's my _mother_ you're talking about!"

"And your father," Sirius reminded him cheerfully.

"I'm never really going to get used to you, am I?"

"I doubt it." Sirius shrugged. "But look on the bright side. Life with Sirius Black is rarely boring, or so I'm told."

* * *

Harry didn't remember ever having a dull life.

However, nothing had quite prepared him for living with Sirius. He was like both Weasley twins combined into a single person, on a sugar rush. Harry had expected when he found out he had a godfather that he'd be gaining a parental figure in his life. Although it wasn't like Mrs Weasley didn't more than manage that task on her own already, so he didn't really need Sirius to be that for him. What he'd gotten instead – and he was rather certain that he'd got the better deal – was another best friend, a brother and a confidant.

Of course, the confidant bit was new on Sirius. Harry told him things he hadn't even told Ron or Hermione, like that he'd almost been put into Slytherin (and Sirius had been _so_ pleased about that, Harry remembered), which led into even more serious things, like the ones he'd spoken to Lupin about. Even though Harry trusted that Lupin knew about darkness, having a dark creature inside him, talking about issues of murder somehow seemed to escalate to an all-new level when the person you were talking to was, in fact, a convicted murderer. Sirius had all kinds of ideas about darkness and what actually constituted murder. In a strange way, it made Harry feel slightly better about the whole thing.

In fact, talking to Sirius actually to some extent seemed to curb his hateful and even borderline murderous feelings toward Snape. It was funny, but even though Sirius hated Snape with a passion, his hate was so similar in nature to Ron's that Harry couldn't help thinking that he seemed to be the only person in the world who hated Snape for a real, not childish reason. Of course, he then abruptly was forced to consider that maybe he _was_ being childish. It wouldn't be the first time, he'd admit.

On the other hand, though, living with Sirius wasn't all fun and relieving his own sense of guilt. Since their rooms were straight across the hall from each other, it was not a rare occasion for one of them to awaken to the other crying out due to bad dreams or, in Harry's case, visions of Voldemort's actions.

The first time it had happened, Harry had awoken to find Sirius caressing his sweaty forehead with a calming hand and murmuring soothing words. He had eventually transformed into a dog and curled up with Harry on the bed. He got through the rest of the night without being subjected to further disturbing nightmares. This happened several more times within the space of a few days.

The night that Harry awoke to harsh whimpering across the hall, he felt that he could do no less than what his godfather had done for him. He was a little surprised to find that Sirius was sleeping in his dog form. When he woke Sirius, who informed him he'd been remembering his time in Azkaban less than fondly, he had asked Sirius about it.

"The Dementors always affected me less in this form. I think that my mind is less complex as a dog, and so they didn't find it as appetising. I never fell asleep as a human for fear that I wouldn't be sane when I woke up. I guess old habits die hard."

Harry's heart clenched. No one should ever have had to become accustomed to having to take that kind of precaution unless they were truly the scum of the earth, and even then... Death would be so much more humane.

From then on, Harry didn't worry so much about his tendencies toward Snape. There were worse things in the world than wishing that a man was dead. He didn't wish for even Snape to go to Azkaban, though he thought he might have wanted Peter Pettigrew in there if he wasn't already dead, if only because that would mean that Sirius would be entirely innocent and would never have been locked up there.

When the two of them awoke in the morning, practically spooning in Sirius's bed, Harry wondered why he wasn't more embarrassed. He was nearly a grown man, physically and in the eyes of the law. He was too old to share a bed for comfort, really, even when it was with his godfather, and the only other reason for him to be sharing a bed… well, again, the man in question was his _godfather_. Harry really shouldn't have to keep reminding himself of that as if clinging to it. It should be just _obvious_.

Harry decided to write his lack of mortification off as being the result of Sirius remaining in dog form whenever they slept in the same bed. There couldn't be anything wrong with a young man sleeping in the same bed as his dog, surely.

Sirius was full of apologies, though he'd made a habit of fobbing Harry off over those past few days whenever he'd tried to do the same. Harry thought that, as the older one, Sirius might have felt that he should have been stronger, as if it was his place to be the protector rather than the protected. Harry personally thought that that was bull, but said nothing of the sort aloud.

"It's just this house. It brings back the same sorts of memories as the Dementors made me think about all the time in Azkaban," Sirius explained dejectedly.

Harry didn't blame him in the slightest. He didn't feel all that comfortable in the house on Grimmauld Place either, and _he_ hadn't had to spend a miserable childhood there.

So that was that. Harry had organised for them to leave the house that afternoon, only a week and a half after they'd first settled in. They'd had to shrink the Black library so that they could take it with them. Some of the more valuable books had to be left behind because they wouldn't stop shrieking at a deafening volume every time an attempt was made to take them past the door leading into the library. Sirius had promised Harry that none of them were likely to be relevant to the Horcruxes and their destruction, so they'd quickly decided that the tomes were more trouble than they were worth. The shrieks as they'd burned in the fireplace had been pitched even above any sounds they'd made before that point. Somehow that really satisfied Harry, and he was sure that Sirius felt the same.

Harry had actually had no idea where they could go to stay, but Sirius seemed happy to take charge once the decision had been made that they should leave the Black house. Once he'd disguised himself well enough that he wouldn't be recognised – the news of his escape had long since been on the front page of the _Prophet_, so people were looking for him – they'd Flooed to a small pub in what looked to be an even smaller sort of village.

"It's a bit of a walk," Sirius mentioned twenty minutes later.

Harry, who was trailing Sirius with all the bags floating in front him – he'd had to take on the task due to Sirius's inability to secure himself a wand of his own – grunted. It took a fair amount of his concentration to direct several floating trunks about at once, especially over a long time while he was also trying not to trip over his own feet.

"You don't say?" Harry groaned.

Sirius only grinned at him. "Not much further though. Maybe ten minutes."

It turned out to be fifteen, which was lucky. If it had been twenty, Harry thought he might have hit Sirius over the head with one of the trunks and been done with him.

The house sat in what might have been the middle of nowhere if not for the town half an hour's walk away, with not another dwelling for miles. It was much like the Weasleys' place that way. The field that surrounded it would be perfect for Quidditch practice if Harry had that kind of time, he thought wistfully. The house itself looked fairly small from where he and Sirius stood, but Harry thought that it was likely that it would be a very comfortable place inside, even if it wasn't magically enhanced as some houses – Number 12 Grimmauld Place included – seemed to be.

"Is this where we're staying?" Harry asked.

Sirius nodded slightly. "If you want to. I have to tell you something first, though, before you make your decision."

Harry frowned, abruptly filled with apprehension. What could be so wrong with this nice-looking house that they'd have to find another?

"This is the house your parents owned," Sirius informed him in a low voice. Harry gaped at it. "It's yours now, of course, so you can live here if you like, but…"

"But my parents died here," Harry finished. As if in a trance, Harry walked toward the house. After a moment's hesitation, Sirius fell into step directly behind him.

"I'm pretty certain that most of the wizarding world was led to believe that it was destroyed when Voldemort tried to kill you. It was one of many steps the Ministry and Dumbledore would have had to have taken to keep tourists away. I knew better, though. I thought you deserved to at least see the place, even if you don't want to stay here."

Harry paused at the door, looking at it speculatively. "How do we get in?" he asked.

Sirius stepped forward, running his hand over the door and then nodding in satisfaction.

"I thought so," he muttered, then raised his voice for Harry's benefit. "You'll always be able to feel most Ministry-induced magic from a mile away. They've put a blood ownership ward on your door, same as there is at my parents' house. Ownership of the house passed to you, as the Potter's heir by blood, so it should open when you touch it."

Harry reached out and cautiously ran his hand down the centre of the wooden door. He jumped slightly when it sprung open.

"Right then. It was probably a good idea for them to do it, so that the house could be protected, but we'll have to change the wards if we stay here."

"Why?" Harry asked, concerned.

Sirius snorted. "Well, they're an annoying type of ward. The only people who put them on houses they're actually living in are psychotic paranoids like my parents. Just imagine actually having to personally go answer the door every time someone, even your own children, wanted to enter the house. It's a nightmare. If we'd stayed in the house on Grimmauld Place longer – and I'm very glad we didn't – I'd have been sure to change the wards to something that other people could unlock if I told them how to. Much more logical."

Harry smirked at Sirius, forgetting for just a moment that he was standing mere feet away from where his parents might have died, and where he spent a year living with them, cared for and loved.

"I've stayed at Grimmauld Place, remember? I think it's pretty unlikely that anyone would ever actually want to visit. Not like this place," he said, staring around the entrance way and through to the living room. "My parents had a good thing set up, by the looks of it. I'd visit here any day."

Sirius sniffed, obviously a little bit offended, though Harry couldn't imagine why. "Well, it's the principle of it, though, isn't it? I'd like to know that people could visit if they wanted to. And they _would_ want to, if I was there."

Harry shook his head. "Sorry, Sirius, but not even you being there could make me go back to the Black house unless I had to. It's creepy."

Sirius shrugged. There really wasn't much he could say to that, since it was nothing but the truth.

The two men entered the house, peering about. It seemed extraordinarily clean, though the air smelled… old. It seemed as though it might have been looked after, though Harry couldn't imagine who would have done so, especially with those wards in place. When Harry mentioned it, Sirius smirked.

"That, I'm guessing, would be the Ministry's idea of a memorial. Sentimental, aren't they? For all that they didn't want tourists tramping around the place, taking advantage of it, I'm betting they wanted it to stay clean and tidy and pretty much like it was at the time. Likely, they cleaned the place up a bit, and then put a preservation spell and the wards up and having done anything to it, since. Their own wards would have locked them out."

"Good," Harry said. "It would have been a bit weird if people had been in and out of the place all the time. I don't think I'd like the idea that someone who has never even lived here has spent more time in the house than I have."

"So you like it?" Sirius asked.

"Yes. I'd like to see upstairs still, but yes."

"And you'd… you wouldn't mind staying here?" Sirius prodded, though Harry could tell that he wasn't trying to push him, as eager as he sounded.

"No. My parents might have died here, but they also raised me here. I might have _still_ been living here with them if not for Voldemort. I'd like to have a chance to spend time in a place where I know that I was accepted and loved."

"Your parents loved you like nothing else in the world, Harry," Sirius reassured him, placing an arm across his shoulders. "You shouldn't need a house to tell you that."

"I… I don't. Of course I don't. Mum loved me more than her own life, or I wouldn't be here right now, and Dad sacrificed himself to give us both a chance to save ourselves. I _know_ that. But it's still… it was here that they spent time with me, you know? It's a big thing. I wish I remembered it. I would love to have some memory of them."

"I wish you did as well."


	11. Chapter 11

******************************CHAPTER ELEVEN**  
  
That night, Harry and Sirius didn't even attempt to organise alternative sleeping arrangements. There was one bed in the house. They would end up in it together by the end of the night, in all likelihood. As such, it seemed foolish not to save themselves time and effort and just officially share the bed. Maybe their nightmares might be averted before they began that way.

It made Harry a little uncomfortable that Sirius still slept as a dog. Though there was the possibility that he might be even more uncomfortable sleeping in the same bed as him if they were both sleeping together as real men, Sirius' choice to revert to his dog from still mad Harry worry for the state of Sirius's mind. It would seem that he still didn't feel safe falling asleep unless he was 'protected' by his Animagus transformation.

These days, they had each meal together and spent an hour or so at night discussing what they'd found during their respective research attempts in the daytime, among other things.

At times, Harry wished he could have dragged Hermione with them simply so that he could devote more time to talking to Sirius rather than researching. She would be far more efficient at looking through the hundreds of books they'd stored away in what must have been Harry's room when his parents were alive. On the other hand, though, Harry quite enjoyed being alone with Sirius. It was… comfortable. There was nothing he wouldn't tell Sirius. He wouldn't have felt that same freedom with Hermione or Ron there.

It was strange, really. He'd known his godfather barely any time at all, in the grand scheme of things, yet he had placed his trust in him more than anyone else in his life. Lupin – or rather, _Remus_, as both of the other men insisted Harry call him – had the same sort of effect on him, he supposed, but Sirius was… well, he was Sirius. If you couldn't open up to Sirius, there was something wrong with the world, because he was such an open person himself.

Of course, as much as Harry was coming to really love being with Sirius as the days went by, he knew very well that his godfather wasn't the most stable of men. Azkaban had affected him more than he liked to admit, but sometimes Harry could tell that he was confused, or had forgotten certain things that he really should remember. He'd called Harry 'James' once. After the devastated look Harry knew had crossed his face for the second before he reeled it in, he didn't think Sirius would ever do it again. His godfather had apologised for nearly an hour straight before Harry had managed to convey to him that it was okay. It wasn't really, but he understood, and that was enough.

* * *

Remus stopped by about three weeks after they'd moved into Godric's Hollow, as his parents had named the property.

"Happy Birthday, Harry!" he exclaimed when Harry answered the door for him, after verifying his identity. He pulled Harry into a strong hug

"It's not my birthday," Harry countered, surprised.

"It is tomorrow," Remus told him, smiling. "Time's flown hasn't it? Sirius sent me an owl asking if I was available to stay the night. The full moon's not for a fortnight yet, so I managed to leave the pack for a night. I didn't want to miss your big birthday."

"That's right!" Sirius exclaimed from behind him. "It's the big 17! You'll be officially an adult tomorrow."

"I had no idea it was that late," Harry said, gob smacked.

Sirius smirked. "I knew you'd probably forgotten. I figured we could make it a complete surprise."

Remus elbowed Sirius lightly in the side. "I'm surprised you didn't let it slip. You were never good with secrets."

A haunted sort of look entered Sirius's eyes at that. Remus, seeming to realise instantly that he'd reminded Sirius about the mistake that they'd all made a silent agreement not to talk about unless absolutely necessary, quickly changed the topic.

"Oh, Sirius, here you go." Remus changed the topic by quickly passing a long thin package to Harry's godfather. "Even though you're not the birthday boy, I decided you just do with a present. It won't be a perfect fit, but it should be serviceable."

It was, of course, a wand. Finally, Harry would have his own wand solely to himself once again. It wasn't like he wasn't happy to help Sirius out by sharing it, but he'd been getting a bit tired of not having any idea where it was at any given time. He didn't ever feel quite safe without it in his hand, or at least in his pocket.

The two older men left Harry alone to research for an hour or two before lunch, which turned out to be particularly delicious today. Though Harry had never expected it, Sirius was a decent cook. This, however, was on a whole new level. When Harry voiced this opinion, Sirius glared at Remus. Ah, that would explain it.

"Not that your cooking isn't always delicious, Sirius," he quickly added on, for once in his life realising that a bit of tact might be called for. "I wish I knew how to cook using magic. I never really picked up spells for basic cleaning and cooking and whatever. Hogwarts doesn't really cover that in its curriculum. I suppose they expect us to know it all beforehand, even though there are a fair few Muggleborns who couldn't possibly have been exposed to them."

Sirius and Remus shot each other a mischievous sort of look. Harry wasn't sure whether he should be worried or not.

"How would you feel about taking an afternoon off from research, Harry?"

In the aftermath of an entire afternoon spent with Remus and Sirius trying to teach Harry how to cook the magical way and generally messing about in the kitchen, he decided that he felt very good about it indeed. Harry hadn't ever considered until that day that Remus might be as much of a trouble-maker and prankster as Sirius if he put his mind to it.

"So, have you enjoyed the lead-up to your birthday so far?" Sirius asked.

"It's been brilliant," Harry breathed.

One of their cooking experiments became dinner. They sat around the kitchen table, covered in all kinds of cooking ingredients that they hadn't bothered to wash off yet, laughing and joking as if they'd all been this close for years. Harry didn't think he'd ever seen Sirius so happy for such a long period at length. He wished for the thousandth time that they didn't have to spend all their time looking for information on the Horcruxes, so that they could spend more time like today.

He had a feeling that it was helping all three of them, but Sirius most of all. As far as Harry had seen, he hadn't really laughed like this since he'd been taken away from Azkaban, and not for at least fifteen years prior to that. Harry regretted that he hadn't thought about that in advance. He would have taken a day off if it had occurred to him that the damage done to Sirius due to his imprisonment was affecting his days as well as his nightmares.

While Sirius was showering off – he was the last to do so – Harry pulled Remus aside and told him his worries about Sirius sleeping in his dog form.

Remus seemed to share his concern. "So you've been sharing a bed," Remus said, and Harry could tell that he was carefully trying not to think too hard about that, "but he's still worried that something will happen to him if he's not protecting himself?"

"I think so," Harry shrugged. "I'm not really a psychologist."

Remus nodded. "Right. So it's not really an issue of comfort. Maybe if he's around something familiar to him from before Azkaban, he'll forget about the risk to some extent. I think after he's gone to sleep and woken up in human form once with nothing bad happening, it should be a lot easier to do it again afterwards."

Harry frowned. "I don't understand what you're suggesting, though," he admitted.

Remus smiled grimly. "Why don't you go try to catch up a bit on the research? Come over to the main bedroom just before midnight so we can properly see your birthday in. If I haven't succeeded by then, I'll have to try to come up with another plan."

Harry complied with this and ended up spending about three and a half hours looking through books that were largely useless before the clock hit ten minutes to midnight. He shook himself properly awake – research always seemed to put him nearly to sleep – and headed into the other bedroom.

Remus and Sirius lay on the bed together curled around each other, much like Harry and Sirius did while Sirius slept as a dog. However, Sirius was still in human form. Though Sirius was completely immobile and breathing deeply, Remus was obviously still awake. He met Harry's eyes and smiled.

"You did it," Harry said quietly. "How?"

"He used to fall asleep a lot when we would sit up talking in my bed. It was a familiar situation for him, I'm guessing."

Harry wanted to be happy, but he wasn't sure how he felt about the fact that Remus had succeeded in helping Sirius after spending only a day with him when Harry, after living with him for nearing two months, had failed repeatedly. No, he knew exactly how he felt. It was the same way he'd felt when he'd watched Ginny with Dean earlier in the year. He was jealous. Almost violently jealous, in fact.

Remus, wise man that he was, seemed to sense this almost instinctively.

"There was nothing more you could have done. You helped him by telling me what was wrong. I could never have helped if it wasn't for you."

Harry shook his head stubbornly. He felt a strange need to cling to his anger.

"It wasn't enough," he muttered. "He can't possibly care as much about me as he does about you, if he's willing to fall asleep in your arms like that, but not mine."

Remus's eyes widened and a strange expression came over his face. If Harry didn't know better, he might have called it a mixture between surprise, helplessness and… jealousy? However, he was fairly certain he was just seeing in Remus what he felt himself. Sirius had made it very clear that Remus no longer felt that way about him, and what else would the man have to be jealous of?

"You…" Remus began, but trailed off. "Oh, Harry. Sirius _loves_ you, at least as much as you love him, if not more. You need to trust me on that."

"He loves you," Harry insisted.

Remus shook his head. "Of course he does. We're old friends. But it doesn't even compare to how much he cares for you."

Remus was speaking so strangely, as if he was trying to hint at something. Harry had never been particularly observant, though, so whatever that something was went straight over his head.

"It's midnight," Remus eventually said. He nudged Sirius, who groaned tiredly but did manage to open his eyes. It was clear that he was confused and a little disoriented, so he obviously had realised that he was in human form.

"Sirius, it's Harry's birthday. It's just now ticked over to midnight."

Sirius blinked a few times in bewilderment. "Oh," he said. Then his eyes fell on Harry standing in front of the bed. "You're seventeen, kiddo," he said, grinning.

"I'm not a 'kiddo' anymore," Harry returned happily. "I'm officially an adult, remember?"

"Absolutely," Sirius agreed before breaking into a loud yawn. "And if I wasn't so bloody tired, we'd be getting piss drunk right now to celebrate. It might have to wait until tomorrow, eh?"

Harry smiled. "Sure. We should probably sleep, then."

Remus nodded, extracting himself from Sirius's tight grip. "I'll be downstairs on the couch, if you need me."

Harry bit his lip. He really did want the bed to himself with Sirius, but then… Remus was such a great guy, and he was obviously good for Sirius. Surely one night with company couldn't hurt.

"Er … you can stay up here, if you like. There's room in this bed for ten body-builders, let alone three stick-thin men."

Remus looked very much like a deer being rushed by a werewolf, which seemed highly ironic to Harry.

"Are you sure? Sirius?"

Sirius shrugged. "Suits me, as long as the sleeping can happen _right now_. As in, no arguing."

Remus nodded. "Right. But you won't be able to turn into a dog, Sirius. I know you. You'll take up the whole bed if you're Padfoot."

Sirius looked panicked for a long moment.

"We'll be here, remember?" Harry murmured reassuringly, slipping into the bed behind Sirius and wrapping an arm around him. "Nothing to worry about."

It took Sirius about an hour to stop shifting about nervously, but eventually Harry felt his godfather's breathing even out. He breathed a sigh of relief and let himself drift into his own deep sleep.

* * *

Harry's actual birthday was spent drinking and playing, of all things, Truth or Dare. They'd even used a mild truth potion. While it did not compel the drinker to tell the truth, it did turn their face a bright scarlet colour when they were lying. Sirius's face was red almost more often than it was its normal colour. If Harry didn't know better, he would have suspected that he was doing it just because he liked the way it looked on him.

They stayed away from certain topics by mutual but unspoken consent. Generally, they stuck to events that occurred at Hogwarts either while Sirius and Remus were there or during Harry's time there.

Harry wasn't sure whether to be surprised or not at feeling his face go red hot as he said 'yes' to still being in love with Ginny. He certainly still liked her, but... well, had he had ever loved her? They hadn't really had time for that, in the end. And what he'd felt for her was nothing like how he felt for Sirius – or even Remus, really – and he wasn't even _dating_ either of them.

Sirius seemed surprised when Harry asked him whether he loved him.

"Of course I do. How could you even doubt that?"

They stared at each other strangely for a while before Remus broke it up.

"Well, that may have been a waste of a question," Remus half-slurred, "but you don't get another one. You'll just have to pick more wisely next time, Harry. My turn!"

Hours later, when the alcohol finally began wearing off, Remus had to leave. They didn't even have time to have dinner first, since they'd completely lost track of time and Remus needed to be getting back to Fenrir and the other werewolves before darkness fell. Harry wished he could have stayed a little longer so that they could have made the most of their time together. Remus might be stuck with the pack for months before they saw him again, after all.

When he was gone, Sirius and Harry simply looked at each other.

"Have you had a good day?" Sirius asked.

Harry nodded. "The cake was great, and Truth or Dare was fun as well, though I'm not sure I wanted to know as much about what you lot got up to when you were my age as I do now. Yesterday was good, as well. Thank you for doing this for me."

Sirius smiled. "So there was nothing else you wanted to do today. Nothing missing?"

Harry shook his head. "I don't think so."

Sirius's smile widened to a teasing grin. "Not even opening presents?" he asked. He walked into the living room and seconds later had returned with a long thin package.

"That's not… is it?" Harry breathed, reaching for it.

"Open it."

Harry found that it was indeed a racing broom. In fact, it was a Firebolt, which was still the fastest and best model on the market.

"I got Remus to go buy it with money from my vault when he was getting my wand. I know Quidditch doesn't hold much appeal right now, with everything else going on, but I also know how much you still love flying."

"It's… it's too much," Harry protested shakily. Harry didn't know how much a Firebolt cost, exactly, but he had a feeling it would have made his vault look a lot emptier, at least.

"Sixteen years worth of birthday and Christmas presents missed, remember," Sirius pointed out. "Think of it as an accumulative present."

Harry threw the arm that wasn't holding the magnificent broom around his godfather.

"Thank you so much," he whispered.

"Are you going to try it out?" Sirius asked.

Harry's stomach seemed to flip over with excitement. "Just try to stop me."

It was nearly pitch black outside by the time Harry was done diving and spinning and generally testing the limits of his new broom. His battered old Nimbus was no match for the sheer speed and handling of the Firebolt. He didn't think he'd ever seen anything quite so wonderful before, let alone had something like this _given_ to him. He was generally pleased enough when he received something like a Weasley jumper as a gift.

When Harry and Sirius were back inside and Harry had reverently propped the new broom near the door for safekeeping, Sirius turned to Harry with an intense sort of look in his eyes.

"I love you, you know," he said.

Harry nodded happily. "Yeah. I know. We established that when I asked you earlier, remember? Not that I shouldn't have already known that. You're not just my godfather, after all. You're one of my best friends. I can't believe that I've only known you for a few months."

Sirius shook his head, looking a little frustrated with Harry for a moment. "No, Harry. That's not it. Well, of course, we are friends, don't get me wrong, but … Merlin, I always bollocks these things up, don't I? I'm _in love_ with you."

Harry just stared for what might have been hours for all he knew. Finally, the ability to speak returned to him. "Oh," he said. Well, speech or not, he still apparently wasn't very articulate. He tried again. "Oh! Wow. That's… wow. Seriously?" Yeah, that was much better. He cursed his own stupidity.

Sirius looked uncertain. "I've grown used to you saying that I've scarred you forever whenever I say something potentially scandalous to you. I don't know whether this is an improvement or not. I think I miss the other reaction, really."

Harry frowned. "Should I actually be scarred for life, though?" he asked.

Sirius shrugged. "Well," he began, "I _am_ your godfather. That's a pretty good argument against what I feel for you. If I remember correctly, you've even used it before. Feel free to use it now, if you like."

Harry looked nonplussed. "You haven't really acted all that much like a godfather since I met you, though," he reminded Sirius.

Sirius looked upset at that. "I'm sorry," he murmured with his eyes downcast.

Great. Harry had messed everything up as per usual. He'd better think quickly, or Sirius would never be honest with himself again. Right. Harry Potter thinking quickly. Sirius was doomed.

"No, it's okay. It's good, actually," he eventually managed to say. "If you had acted like my godfather at any point, it might make this a little awkward."

Harry leaned into Sirius and pressed his lips against the other man's. Sirius reached out tentatively and ran his hand against Harry's cheek as he responded to the kiss. Harry broke away for air and pulled his face slowly away, meeting Sirius's eyes as he took a step back.

"See? This way it's not at all awkward," he said as dispassionately as he could manage with his breath coming in gasps of arousal.

Sirius looked like he had no idea what he was meant to do now.

"Not at all awkward," he agreed. They stood staring at each other in an uncomfortable silence for a moment before Sirius cheerfully suggested, "So, dinner?"

Harry jumped at the proposal. "Yes! Let's go! I'm starving. Famished. I could eat a horse. I could eat almost _anything_."

Sirius smirked saucily, suddenly seeming much more comfortable and in his element. "We'll never get around to dinner if you make claims like that!"

Harry groaned. "Okay, yep. There it is. I'm scarred now after all. It's more to do with you being a horny pervert than my godfather, though… You know, I take it back. This is definitely awkward. I didn't know I liked you that way until just now. Hell, I'm not sure I'm even gay. I liked Ginny and Cho, even though I didn't really… It just seems weird. Is it weird?"

Sirius half shrugged. "No, it's fine. It's really actually quite normal," he assured Harry. "In fact, I'm not gay either. Woman are…" he trailed off as if unsure what exactly he thought women were. "No, I'm lying. I forget sometimes that I don't have to," he admitted with a sigh. "I'm as bent as they come. There goes any chance of a bisexual bonding session. But even so, I do know that there's nothing wrong with liking both men and women."

"What about the sudden liking of my godfather, whether he acts like it or not? Is _that_ weird?"

Sirius shrugged. "Spontaneous attraction?" he suggested innocently.

Harry laughed. "I think you're thinking of spontaneous combustion, and please don't. Combust, that is. For my sake. I'd hate to lose you now."

Sirius snorted. "Thanks, I think. It's nice to know that you like me, and that you're actually worse at this than I am… So is this where we fall into bed and shag madly?"

Harry rolled his eyes at his godfather. "You wish," he shot back. "I'm not that easy."

Sirius pouted. "You're no fun. Why couldn't you be a normal teenage boy?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Then you wouldn't love me."

Sirius smiled roguishly. "Maybe not. However, I would be getting shagged right now, which might be nearly as good."

"And I'd be going hungry. Right now, dinner would be better than even sex."

"You're so far from a normal seventeen-year-old that I think I'm worried."


	12. Chapter 12

**********************************CHAPTER TWELVE**  
  
It took Harry two days before he worked up the nerve to kiss Sirius again. Even then, it was only because he was so pleased about finding a possible way to destroy the cup and locket.

He wasn't entirely to blame, though. The morning after they'd had their first lip-to-lip encounter, Sirius had grown suddenly distant toward him. Harry had tried to find out what was wrong, but Sirius had simply given him empty excuses. Harry had suspected that Sirius had read some bad news in the books. He wouldn't have been at all surprised if the Horcruxes turned out to be indestructible.

The problem was that the Horcruxes Harry had previously destroyed were much less durable than the two solid metal objects he had to break. They couldn't be certain that just melting them down would be enough; the bit of Voldemort's soul might still be anchored to the metal even if it was a liquid, for all they knew, since the items wouldn't technically have been _broken_.

Upon coming across something that looked vaguely helpful for the first time since they'd started researching, Harry decided that he had no idea what Sirius could be so upset about, because it didn't look at all like it was a hopeless case. Not from where Harry was sitting, at least.

When Sirius came over after Harry had called for him so that he could tell him the news, Harry was so excited that he didn't realise quite what he was doing until he was pressed against Sirius from head to toe, including lips.

The kiss was one of almost surprise at first, and began very chastely. However, it quickly became desperate. Harry could practically taste how much Sirius wanted him. It was a heady feeling, being needed like that.

He did break away from the kiss after Sirius slid a hand down to Harry's nipple and tweaked it through his shirt, sending a shudder through Harry's entire body.

"I want you so much right now," Harry sighed. "But I found something about the Horcruxes. That's more important right now."

Sirius groaned in frustration, but nodded. "Yes. You're right. But stop squirming like that, or I won't be held responsible for flipping you over and having my way with you right where you are."

And here Harry had thought he couldn't possibly get any harder. He pushed his body away from Sirius's so that the other man couldn't feel it.

"Anyway," Harry said, trying to drag his mind back onto what it should be thinking about, "this book talks a bit about the fact that objects that are possessed, and how to free the soul, simply breaking the object isn't always enough. It says we might have to perform an exorcism of sorts. I don't think there's actually a spell for that, though."

Sirius nodded. "I hoped it wouldn't come to that. That kind of magic is all about intention, and so it's extremely difficult. Doubly so on inanimate objects, I'm guessing."

Harry groaned. "Right. That's going to suck. The Horcruxes have no will power of their own. It's going to be like someone without an ounce of will power breaking the Imperius?" he asked.

Sirius sighed. "Spot on. Only, you'll be able to become its will, to some extent. You have to thrust a great deal of your own power into the object, and some of your own will power becomes infused in it. It's that that drives the soul out of the object. But Harry, doing this could seriously hurt you."

Harry glared at Sirius. "Do you think I care about that? I have to do it. It's the only way to get rid of Voldemort, isn't it, and there's no way that I'm giving up on that!"

Sirius sighed. "Harry, no. _I'll_ do it. It makes no sense to risk you; you're the only one who can defeat him in the end, remember. That means that you have to actually _make_ it to that final battle intact."

Harry shook his head stubbornly. "I have a stronger will." Sirius raised his eyebrows, affronted. "I'm sorry, but it's true. I can break the Imperius completely within a few seconds of it being put on me. Even Voldemort's. I'm less likely to be hurt in the attempt."

Sirius growled. "Harry…"

"No! You may be my godfather and my… whatever we are now, but you can't tell me what to do when it comes to this. If you can't trust me, I can't be with you."

Sirius looked stunned and conflicted. "I can't just let you do this," he said finally. "I love you. I don't want you to be hurt."

Harry reached out and pulled Sirius closer to him again. "I won't be," he whispered into Sirius's ear. "I promise you that I'll be fine."

Sirius seemed indecisive still, but nodded in acquiescence regardless.

"Right. But I think that I'll get some rest first, just to be sure."

It wasn't until they lay down that Harry realised that the fact that they had kissed again had somehow obviously made their relationship seem less surreal or something, because it was much harder to lie beside Sirius and not do anything than it had been the previous night, or the night before that.

Harry pulled Sirius closer so that he could see his godfather's face in the dark and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

"Everything will be all right," he murmured. It was still vaguely strange to comfort his godfather, rather than the other way around, but it was kind of nice as well. He liked knowing that he could help Sirius.

Harry tried to fall asleep, still pressed close to Sirius's body and trying to ignore their twin erections so close to each other that if he moved just a little…

Harry slept fitfully. Sirius remained awake and alert, watching over Harry as if the possibility of him hurting himself was going to physically manifest and attack him in the night.

* * *

Harry made it through exorcising the first object of Voldemort's soul without permanently injuring himself, though it seemed to Sirius like a near thing. As it was, by the time they were sure that the locket was no longer a Horcrux, Harry was nearly collapsing from exhaustion.

After Sirius had helped Harry to the bedroom and the bed itself, he used Harry's wand to transfigure a spoon that was lying in the sink into a large and extremely heavy sledgehammer. He then picked up the locket and took it outside so as not to disturb Harry.

Harry, who was not quite asleep, could hear the banging even from up in the bedroom. Even as tired as he was, he managed to stumble over to the window, where he could look down upon the older man. From there he watched Sirius repeatedly attack what looked like the locket Harry had just exorcised a seventh of Voldemort soul from with… a sledgehammer?

Harry would have been lying to himself if he said he wasn't extremely worried about Sirius. That much rage built up in him wasn't good; Harry knew that from first-hand experience. He'd felt like pounding a sledgehammer into Snape's head every time he thought of Dumbledore, but he'd had months to think on it and discuss it with both Sirius and Remus. He was pretty sure that he didn't _want_ to kill anyone other than Voldemort, Snape included. He'd felt so much better about himself after realising that.

Sirius, on the other hand, looked that he'd very much like to kill the first non-Harry-shaped thing he found. Harry bit his lip as he heard Sirius curse angrily between swings and… sobs? It sounded like it. Also, he couldn't tell for sure from this height – it might have just been sweat from the exertion of what he was doing – but to Harry it looked a lot like there were tears streaming down Sirius's face.

There was something definitely wrong. This wasn't simply fear that Harry was going to hurt himself trying to de-Horcrux the Horcruxes. There was something else going on that he couldn't quite see.

Whatever it was, Sirius wasn't telling. When Sirius returned up to the bedroom, Harry asked him once again what was wrong.

"Nothing. I'm just worried for you, Harry," he replied.

Harry didn't believe him for a moment, but he was so tired that he couldn't even find the energy to put up a real fight about it.

Harry fell asleep and slept anything but soundly once more. This time Sirius slept as well, for he was so exhausted that he could no longer ignore his body's needs. However, he slept as restlessly as the younger man that he held in his arms.

* * *

The next day Harry was still a little weak but wouldn't take no for an answer. He performed the second exorcism and once again drained himself completely. This time, however, he fell immediately unconscious. Sirius had to drag him up to bed.

But he'd lived through it. That was the most important thing in the world to Sirius. That was what he cared about more than anything else in the world, even his own wellbeing.

Sirius angrily wiped tears from his face. He was going to pull himself together. He was going to be there for Harry. And he was going to try to save the boy from his fate if at all possible.

* * *

"I'm sorry," Sirius said.

Harry looked up from the plate of porridge he was eating for breakfast.

"Sorry?" he asked.

"For lying to you. I told you nothing was wrong. I lied."

Harry set his spoon down expectantly.

"I came across something in one of the books that I was reading that really scared me. I'm not worried anymore, though, so you shouldn't be either," he quickly added when Harry opened his mouth to ask what Sirius had found. "I thought about it a lot over the last few days, and it's nothing for you to be worried about."

Harry had to trust Sirius about this, because there was nothing else he could do. The trouble was that he still wasn't sure that he did trust even his godfather to disclose everything to him. He supposed all those years of Dumbledore hiding things from him had affected him more than he realised.

"Are you sure?" he asked, watching Sirius's face carefully for any sign that he was lying.

"Absolutely."

Harry bit his lip and leaned back into his chair, averting his eyes back to his porridge. Sirius's eyes hadn't given anything away, but that wasn't to say that there wasn't anything there. He glanced at Sirius once more. The older man looked earnest, at least. Harry picked up his spoon once more and finished his porridge.

"Are you feeling better today?" Sirius asked as he walked over to Harry's side.

Harry nodded, swallowing the last mouthful of his breakfast. "After sleeping for about twenty hours straight, I should," he mused.

Sirius bent down and kissed Harry on the forehead. Harry closed his eyes and savoured the warm lips on his face. Sirius, thus, caught him completely unawares when he kissed Harry on the mouth. Harry jerked away, laughing.

"I taste like porridge," Harry told Sirius.

Sirius waggled his eyebrows. "I _like_ porridge," he replied.

Harry was swept up into Sirius's arms, and from there was carried upstairs and dumped on their bed.

"Are you going to have your wicked way with me now?" Harry asked jokingly.

Sirius suddenly looked eager. "Why? Do you plan to let me?"

Harry shrugged. "I suppose that all depends on your performance," he replied nonchalantly. "You are, after all, quite a bit older than me. I'm not at all sure that you'd be as… _eager_ for it as I'd be."

Sirius laughed in his hoarse, barking sort of way, flopping down on the bed beside Harry and reaching for the top of the row of buttons on Harry's shirt.

"Oh, I'm eager enough, you tease," Sirius breathed against Harry's neck. Harry shuddered slightly in anticipation.

It was sudden, but it felt somehow right that his first time with Sirius – with anyone – should be a complete surprise to him. Everything else in his life was, so why should this be any different? Why _shouldn't_ they randomly decide to have sex for the first time over breakfast?

As Sirius divested Harry slowly of his shirt, his mouth followed his hands down Harry's chest, and then Harry's stomach. As the last button came undone and the shirt felt open, Sirius paused at Harry's naval.

Ginny had done this to him once, but it hadn't felt even half as good. Harry had a feeling that had little to do with the amount of experience of the performer, and more with _who_ the person performing actually was.

Sirius pulled away after a while and looked at his prize.

"Huh," he scoffed. "I could have sworn playing Quidditch was supposed give a man muscles."

Harry poked his tongue out at his about-to-be lover. "Do you mind?" he asked. "I have low self-esteem."

Sirius laughed. "Do you now? Well, in that case, I wish my body was as awesomely hot as yours! You're so sculpted I can't believe you aren't a god! Can we have sex now, Mr Low Self-Esteem?"

Harry grinned. "You know," he mused, "I really thought that _I_ was the seventeen-year-old boy in this relationship.

"I haven't gotten any for nearly two decades!" Sirius whined, giving Harry big pleading eyes.

Harry shrugged. "Well, nor have I."

Sirius stopped everything he was doing and gave Harry a blank look. "Oh, you're… You're a virgin? How could I possibly have missed that question during Truth or Dare? What kind of godfather am I, that I didn't take the opportunity to make fun of your inexperience?"

Harry scowled. "Do it now," he warned, "and you won't get laid for yet _another_ two decades."

Sirius poked his tongue out this time. His face then went sober. "Seriously though, Harry, I'm sorry. If I'd realised I would have toned done the pushing for sex. Maybe."

"No you wouldn't have," Harry contradicted. "That's fine, though. I'm ready. I want this."

The whites of Sirius's teeth flashed dazzlingly at Harry. "You have no idea how hot you look saying that."

"What can I say? I'm practically a god, remember?"

Sirius smirked. "Right you are. So how may I serve you, your godliness?" he asked, while at the same time undoing Harry's trousers.

"Er," Harry gasped, his breath shortening as his level of arousal grew. "What you're doing is… oh! Just fine."

Sirius looked up from where he had just bitten Harry's hipbone playfully. "I thought it might be," he returned cockily.

Harry melted into the sheets. He was pretty sure that he didn't solidify again until several hours after Sirius had finished with him.

* * *

When Harry awoke, Sirius was sucking on his nipple.

"Mmm … morning," he breathed, thrusting his chest up into Sirius's mouth. Sirius lightly bit down before releasing him.

"Evening, actually. I can't believe how long you slept, considering you slept for practically an entire day only yesterday."

Harry shrugged languidly. "Take it as a compliment, if you like. You wore me out."

Sirius flicked Harry's other nipple with his fingernail, drawing a groan out of his young lover. "So much for teenage stamina."

"I don't think that my performance the day after I used all of my energy to do dangerous and difficult magic _twice_ is a great measure of my stamina," Harry shot back, sounding for all the world as if he was carefree. He knew that his insecurity must have been shining in his eyes, though, because Sirius reached up and cupped his cheek comfortingly.

"I have no complaints about your performance, trust me."

Sirius trailed his fingers lightly down toward Harry's erection. Harry groaned and thrust up into the air, not finding the friction he suddenly so desperately needed.

Sirius placed his hand firmly on Harry's stomach and pushed him softly back down onto the bed.

"As much as I'd like a repeat performance, I don't think you're quite up to it, yet."

Harry wanted to argue that he was very much _up_ to it, but then Sirius continued.

"Besides, as of yesterday, there is only one Horcrux and one Dark Lord for us to get rid of. I think we might need to consider the implications of that sooner rather than later."

"Right. You're right. So, are we still sure that the snake is our best bet for the last Horcrux?" Harry asked.

Sirius bit his lip. "Not _sure_, no, but the snake is the best option we have available. And if it's the snake, that means you're going to have to be ready to fight Voldemort straight away afterward, because where the snake is, he is, and he'll be spoiling for a fight if you destroy his Horcrux right in front of him."

Harry nodded. "Right. Two in one day. I can do that."

Sirius squeezed Harry on the shoulder. "Of course you can. I know you can."

Harry closed his eyes for a moment and just basked in Sirius's confidence in him.

"So how do we find where they are?" Harry eventually asked, opening his eyes to look at his lover.

Sirius scowled. "That's hurdle number one. I'm thinking that Remus might be a start. He's infiltrated Greyback's werewolves, by the sounds of it, and he told me that they tend to stay within a certain distance of their 'Dark Lord'. If we can contact him, he might be able to lead us in the right direction."

"And if that doesn't work?" Harry asked. He rather hoped it would, but it sounded almost too easy.

Sirius sighed. "Then we suck it in and go a little higher up the food chain. As much as I hate the snarky git, and I know that you do too, you may have to contact Snape."

Harry scowled. He was pretty sure now that he could refrain from attacking Snape on sight. That didn't mean that he had any particular desire to ever see the man again, though. The less the better, really. Temptation was an evil thing, after all.

Sirius kissed Harry's chin. "It'll be all right. Chances are that Remus will come through. And, if not, then I trust you not to do something that you'll regret. If you trust yourself as well, then you won't."

Easier said than done, thought Harry, but he said nothing at all aloud. He merely huffed in response, which Sirius seemed to take as agreement.

"Right then, that's settled. I'll send Remus off an owl, and we'll worry about the rest when we hear back from him."

Harry nodded and pulled Sirius down on top of him, lining their bodies up as much as he could with their difference in height.

"Trying to get me to reconsider the 'repeat performance' thing?" Sirius asked with a rakish grin.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Of course not. I'm about to use bribery on you to make you cook me a very large and delicious dinner. I'm _starving_."

"Oh?" Sirius replied innocently. "Well, I would need adequate incentive, of course…"

* * *

Thankfully, Remus could indeed help. They received an owl back from him the following afternoon. Harry had not been looking forward to appealing to Snape's nonexistent better nature at all, and was thankful to be spared from it.

The Dark Lord, presumably along with his snake, was located off in a field in Wales. Remus had given directions to the best of his abilities, and Harry felt fairly sure that he'd be able to Apparate within a reasonable distance of Voldemort's hiding place. Hopefully he wouldn't land directly on top of it and give himself away, though he wouldn't really be surprised. Stealth was not exactly his middle name.

"So we'll go soon then," Harry said, though his voice sounded lifeless. He was going to have to put himself in mortal danger once again. How was he going to leave Sirius when he knew there was a large chance he'd never be able to come back to him?

"Tomorrow," Sirius replied firmly. "They won't move until tomorrow afternoon at the very earliest. Not if they're still there now. You need time to prepare yourself mentally and get some rest."

Harry nodded. Right. Rest. He'd been thinking more along the lines of shagging Sirius's brains out for what could be the last time, but resting up was a good idea as well. Anything that might improve his chances of getting through the last part of his task alive had to be a good idea.

The last part of his task. Merlin, one way or another it should be all be over _tomorrow_. After years of fighting against Voldemort, Harry could finally see the finish line, and with it the chance of a semi-normal life spent with Sirius at his side. He imagined, for the first time since hearing the prophecy, growing old. He might make it past the age of twenty. He shouldn't have been so utterly amazed at the prospect, but he was. It was a huge deal. He could hardly breathe at the mere thought of it.

When he finally pulled himself back together, Harry found that Sirius was watching him with a strange look in his eyes.

"Harry, I just want you to know –"

"We aren't saying goodbye, yet," Harry cut in obstinately. "If I'm not going until tomorrow, then we're going to sort everything out now so that I'm ready, and then we're going to spend a few hours shagging and pretending that tomorrow is just another day, and then I'm going to sleep. If you still want to say whatever it is tomorrow, say it then."

Sirius stared at Harry, taking in the adult that stood where a child must have been not all that long ago. With the exception of back when he'd been an infant, the memory of which Sirius had trouble really connecting to the Harry in front of him, Sirius had never met Harry the innocent boy. By the time they'd finally crossed paths, Harry had long since been hardened into a young man that had seen about as much darkness as Sirius himself. Maybe, when it was over, Harry would find time to reclaim his youth and remember what it was to be a teenager, assuming he'd ever even known in the first place.

Sirius hoped that that would happen, because if not, that meant… It meant something he didn't even want to contemplate.

"All right," Sirius eventually ground out of his tight throat. "So that means that we're talking now. What did we need to talk about?"

Harry frowned. "Well, a few things really. First, I don't understand how we know that Voldemort hasn't replaced the Horcruxes he knows are destroyed with new ones. We might never defeat him; he could just keep replacing them."

Sirius shook his head. "I've seen him, and so have you. He's barely human now as it is, with only six Horcruxes. If he made any more – separated any more parts of his soul – there wouldn't be enough of his soul left in his body for him to function. His magic would suffer, as would his sense of himself. I know you've probably never seen anyone after they've been Kissed by a Dementor, but I'll tell you now that it's not a pretty thing. Death would be kinder. If Voldemort fears death, he must fear becoming soulless even more. He wouldn't risk it, not even for immortality. He'd have to try another means all together of keeping himself alive, I'd say. I don't think you have to worry about that."

"Right. Okay. That makes sense. The other thing is that I'm having second thoughts about Nagini, the snake. What if it's not a Horcrux? What even made Dumbledore think that it was in the first place? I don't want to go in there and get myself killed just because I relied on blind faith alone."

Sirius nodded slowly. "Well, I suspect that Dumbledore thought it was the snake for many reasons. But he knew that Voldemort had not made his last Horcrux when he attacked your family, and for him to have all six now means that his final Horcrux must have been something special that he came into contact with between then and now, probably while he wasn't entirely corporeal."

Harry frowned. "He came into contact with a lot of things. I'd never be able to find them all out."

Sirius nodded. Harry saw a strange sort of fear in his eyes, and wondered whether he had struck on the crux of the matter. Sirius had found something in his research that had spooked him so much. That could very well have been the possibility of the Horcrux being something entirely different, perhaps even something indestructible.

"Yes," Sirius said, "but it's likely to be something he might protect in some way. Either hide away, or possibly keep near him at all times."

"Like the snake," Harry agreed.

"Right. Also, it's liable to be something living."

"Why's that?"

"Well, it's easier to put a soul inside something living, of course."

Harry snorted. "'Of course'? How do you know something like that?"

Sirius practically preened, as if he was far superior to Harry. "Well, I am an Animagus, Harry, remember? I had to learn all about putting animal souls, or at least partial souls, inside human bodies, and vice versa. I _know_ these things now, trust me. It makes sense for that to be why Dumbledore suspected it was the snake in the first place. Voldemort wouldn't have had a body, and that would have made the magic harder. He would have been trying for the easier option, even if it probably wouldn't have been best in the long run; living things are more likely to die than inanimate objects are likely to be destroyed, after all."

Harry felt his heart sink down to somewhere in the vicinity of his intestines. "But… living… Sirius…" He couldn't possibly be expected to articulate what he was thinking. It was far too horrible.

Sirius continued on heedless. "Of course, he seemed very cocky about it, so you'd think it would have to be something, or someone, that we'd never guess, or maybe –"

Harry cried out desperately, "Or maybe it's _me_! Oh, Merlin, that's what you found in the books! That's why you've been so… I don't know, _angry_. It makes sense, though I really wish it didn't. I always thought the strength of my connection to him through my scar and my inheritance of parseltongue and all that was a bit odd, all things considered. Makes sense, though, if I'm carting bits of him around inside me, I suppose. No wonder I considered killing Snape. Part of me's an evil murderer."

Sirius shook his head in denial, seeming way too calm for Harry's liking. "Harry, I really don't think it's you. There has to be another more logical explanation."

"It _is_ logical!" Harry shouted. "Answer me this, Sirius. Is this what you've been worried about? That the Horcrux might be _me_?"

Sirius looked away guiltily. "It seemed to be a _possibility_. But that's all it is. There are other options," he was quick to say. Harry turned away, his face displaying a pained expression. "There are a lot of others. The snake, Nagini, makes sense. That's what Dumbledore thought, and I've rarely known Albus Dumbledore to be wrong about the big things in life."

Harry refused to leave it be just because Sirius wanted him to. "It doesn't make as much sense, though," he pressed. "Maybe Dumbledore was just trying to protect me for a little longer. That's what he always did, even when he really shouldn't have."

Sirius abruptly grew angry. He sported a snarl on his face that nearly made Harry reel backward when he demanded, "So what, you're just going to kill yourself in the hopes that your theory is right?"

"Of course not!" Harry cried. "Merlin, Sirius, you couldn't possibly understand how much I'm hoping that I'm wrong. Because if I'm right, then this has all been for nothing. It's always been him or me, in the end, and I thought that by fighting him I was choosing to live… I don't want to die."

Harry was enveloped in Sirius's arms in less than a second. "I won't let you," the older man promised.

"You won't?" Harry asked softly, not even trying to hide the fear in his voice.

Sirius buried his face in Harry's hair. "Of course not," he murmured. "I love you."

"What if that's not enough?"

Sirius's face went harsh with resolve. "I'll make it be enough," he swore.

"Sirius, what are we going to do?" Harry asked.

"We're going to do exactly what we planned. It's very likely that the Horcrux is Nagini. And if it is you, there's nothing you can do about it, so there's no point in even thinking about it."

Harry was not particularly mollified at that, but he did really want to take his mind off it. It had to be Nagini, he told himself. The final Horcrux had to be Nagini.

He had a feeling that that might become a mantra of sorts over the next twenty-four hours or so.

"Sirius?" Harry croaked into the silent room.

Sirius pulled away from Harry enough to look into the young man's eyes.

"Could you… er, could we have sex now?"

Sirius nodded. "Of course."

As Sirius prepared and entered his godson, they both recognised what they were doing for exactly what it was. It was a life-affirming action, of course; that much was a given. But even more than that, it was both a goodbye and a declaration of feelings.

Harry thrust up into Sirius, glad that they were face-to-face this time. He needed to see exactly what he was fighting for.

Harry cried out, Sirius's name on his lips. Sirius responded in kind less than a minute later. As they slumped together on the bed, Sirius curling protectively around Harry's body, Harry turned his head around and kissed Sirius before settling back into his position spooned against Sirius's solid but bony chest.

"I love you," Harry whispered. "I thought I should tell you that before…"

Sirius squeezed him a little tighter against his body in response. "I know. I love you too. Never forget that."

"I don't think I ever could."


	13. Chapter 13

**************************************CHAPTER THIRTEEN**  
  
When Harry left Godric's Hollow late in the morning that next day, he and Sirius never uttered the promised goodbyes. It was as if by saying it aloud, it would make the whole thing real, and Harry couldn't afford to consider the possibility of dying in his attempt to kill Voldemort, let alone having to die for Voldemort to be killed.

Instead, all they did was share a last lingering kiss. Harry clung to Sirius like a drowning man, though he managed to hold back his tears. He couldn't have evidence of weakness like that when he went to face Voldemort. The dark wizard wouldn't hesitate to exploit it. Such things could get Harry killed, and there were high enough odds of that happening as it was.

As he walked beyond the anti-Apparition wards on the property, with Sirius still standing back in the doorway of the house watching him leave, Harry wondered vaguely where the other people he cared about – those he didn't even have the option of saying goodbye to – were right at that moment. He hoped that they were safe. He particularly hoped that Remus was away from the other werewolves so that there would be no threat of him getting involved in what Harry now had to do. Harry would hate to see him get hurt or, unthinkable though it might have be, killed, because of him.

Harry glanced one last time back at the house before he Apparated. Sirius was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

It took Harry a little time to locate the campsite that the Death Eaters and Voldemort appeared to be staying in. From the thick patch of trees that Harry had Apparated into, Harry observed a few unkempt looking people, probably werewolves, milling around, but he saw no Death Eaters.

What he did see, all by itself and unprotected, was Nagini. He supposed that a snake that size could generally be relied upon to be able to defend itself from harm. However, Harry wasn't really planning on giving the snake a chance.

It all went by in a blur. Harry raised his wand, took several steps forward and out of the trees so that he would have a clear shot, and cast two spells in quick succession:

"_Sectumsempra_! _Incendio_!"

The snake was gutted like a fish, and quickly went up in flames. If that didn't kill it, at the Horcrux with it, Harry would be shocked as well as sorely disappointed.

Luckily, the snake quickly stopped twitching, the life having obviously gone out of it. Unluckily, the spectacle of a giant burning reptile creating something of a bonfire in the middle of the Death Eater camp attracted several of the Death Eaters themselves, as well as Voldemort trailing just behind them.

"Stand down!" Voldemort cried out to his dark-robed followers. "He's mine."

The Death Eaters obediently fell back as Voldemort stalked toward Harry. He got the feeling that he was the prey in this scenario. He was glad that his wand was already at the ready, for what little good he felt that it could do for him at that moment.

"Your Horcruxes are all gone, Voldemort! That was the last of them."

Of all the things that Harry might have guessed to be Voldemort's reaction to this declaration, laughter was not one of them.

"Nagini?" he asked incredulously. That gave Harry a really bad feeling in his chest. "Potter, why ever would you think that a snake I only came into contact with after I was exiled from my body would be a Horcrux?"

"You didn't have enough until after you tried to kill me," Harry replied, attempting to sound confident in his answer.

"Dumbledore told you that, did he? Well he was right, of course. The old meddler often was. I knew I needed to split my soul into seven pieces. I was planning on using your family's demise as the necessary murders for my last Horcrux. Only, things did not turn out as planned. I did not have the opportunity to find the perfect final object. It's no matter, though. Things turned out reasonably well, I think.

"Because you see, Potter," Voldemort cackled, "now, with things the way they are, there's only one way this can play out. The prophecy states that one of us must kill the other. Oh yes, I know the whole prophecy. Your mind relinquished that information to mine quite easily, let me assure you. You, however, cannot actually kill me. I cannot die when any of my Horcruxes are in existence. You will find that you cannot both destroy the final Horcrux and then go on to kill me.

"Would you like to know why? It is because _you_ are my final Horcrux, Harry Potter, and since you are the only one with the power to defeat the other precautions against death I have taken, taking yourself out of the picture will not be enough to lead to my death. Once you are dead, I will stand unopposed. Be glad that you will not be there to see it."

Harry was stunned. He'd tried so hard since the idea that it might be him first came to him to tune it out and forget that it was a possibility that he'd almost made himself believe it was impossible. He'd convinced himself it was the snake, of course it was, because even though fate hated his guts more than anyone else he'd met barring maybe Sirius and Remus, it couldn't have hated him quite _that_ much, surely.

Though, somehow, Harry wasn't all that shocked that the world was out to get him. It kind of followed the theme of the last seventeen odd years nicely.

"No," Harry denied quietly nonetheless. He was naïve; what could he say? He didn't want to give up on the nearly nonexistent chance that by saying it wasn't true, he actually could make it a lie.

"Oh yes, Harry. You have fought against me for years for no reason. Even better, by actively opposing me you have drawn my attention to those you will be leaving behind. That little Mudblood girl should make a wonderful example, showing the wizarding world that wizards sprung from Muggles will be killed unless they comply with my wishes. And from those Weasleys I'm certain I can create an extraordinary show of what happens to blood traitors who oppose the way of Lord Voldemort. There are so many of them, after all. It might be interesting to kill each one in a different way, don't you think? Perhaps I should kill the parents last so they can watch all of their children die for your precious cause."

"No! Don't touch them you bastard!"

"And your pet dog," Voldemort continuing, smiling wickedly, "will make a lovely rug to place before my fireplace. When I tire of it, it will be in such an opportune place; it will be so easy to burn it, until there is no trace at all, and no one to remember it ever existed. They barely remember him now, and those few who do remember him don't do so very favourably."

Harry clenched his fists by his side, but at the same time he felt an angry tear streaking down his face. He wiped it savagely away with the back of his fist, well aware that Voldemort had seen how upset he had made him. He hated himself for giving him that pleasure.

"If you're going to kill me, I'm right here!" The voice drifted to them from a fair distance away, not far from where Harry had Apparated.

"Sirius!" he cried back. "Get out of here!"

"And you can stop lying to my godson, while you're at it! He's not going to be all noble and kill himself so that you can be killed, if that's what you were hoping. Not when I know he doesn't have to."

Harry could hear the shouting as if from miles away. He could tell the direction from which it originated, over within the trees. However, he couldn't actually see Sirius, and thus couldn't go to him. He wished so badly that he could go to him. He knew that he was going to die quite shortly, but that somehow seemed to matter much less if he could actually manage to say goodbye to Sirius, having been given a second chance to do so.

When Sirius finally emerged from the foliage, Harry still remained stationary. He felt as if some unseen force had him solidly rooted to the ground. Perhaps, though, it was his subconscious reminding him that there were other important factors at play. He really shouldn't turn his back to Voldemort, after all.

"You'd be surprised what books are in the Black library," Sirius smirked. "There are a lot darker things than the Hogwarts Restricted Section will ever see. I found a book or two about Horcruxes. Funny, but one book seemed to suggest that a witch or wizard who was dying – or even had already died not long before, if their magic was strong enough for them to hold onto – could sometimes cling to the physical world long enough to create a Horcrux. Only, the author also speculated that such a person wouldn't have the magic required to make a durable object into a Horcrux. That sort of thing takes a lot of energy. Not like, say, the possession of a human being. And speaking of which, it also suggested that, supposedly, it takes less energy to make a person into a Horcrux because it's so much like possession."

"And that is when I made Potter my Horcrux, thus proving my point. Are you going to say something of interest soon, or will I kill you now?"

Sirius laughed. Harry thought it sounded a little bit insane and left him highly worried.

"I don't think you will. In fact, by not killing me on sight, I think you've proven my point. You treated me like I was just your tool from the start, when you let me out of Azkaban. But if that was really the case, then I shouldn't be useful to you anymore. I did what you got me out of Azkaban to do, for all that it helped you. Yet you still haven't killed me. I'm not just your plaything, am I? There's more to it."

"Oh, please, do enlighten us as to the subject of your madness," Voldemort drawled uninterestedly. Harry, however, thought that his jaw looked as if it was locked too tightly for Sirius to be as far off base as Voldemort was suggesting.

"That book that I was talking about earlier went a bit further in its musings," Sirius continued. "It talked a lot about possession. One of the more interesting comments was that young people – generally toddlers and younger, who've yet to manifest their own magic – couldn't be possessed because the influx of magic into their system would kill them." Sirius paused to raise an eyebrow. "You spent years researching Horcruxes, so you must have known that. As such, I doubt little one-year-old Harry Potter looked like a prime Horcrux candidate."

Harry's heart leapt. It wasn't him? There was a chance he could still live through this?

He wished he could kiss Sirius in relief, but it was hardly the time or the place.

Voldemort sneered. "So what? The fact remains that I still have at least one Horcrux, and that is assuming that you have not been wrong about any of the others. Remember, you've already been wrong at least once."

Sirius shrugged. "You have one more Horcrux. Great. I agree. However, my story doesn't end there, does it?

"Harry wasn't the only person in the Potters' house in the hours after you tried to kill him. I'm guessing that with the other Horcruxes in existence already, you were able to cling to your magic for at least long enough for Hagrid to arrive."

"No." Harry could hardly breathe. He couldn't kill Hagrid. How could he possibly do that? Hagrid was the first friend he'd ever had.

Sirius was too far away to hear him. He continued on, oblivious of Harry's imminent panic attack.

"Hagrid was half-giant, though. His magic is different to yours, and giants are somewhat impervious to things like possession and mind-reading. He was a better match than Harry, certainly; you might have succeeded if you were at full strength, but he was just too much for your diminished state.

"But then there was a third person, straight after Hagrid."

Harry had seen Voldemort's angry sneer increase in intensity as Sirius said this. Considering that he should really have been laughing at the unbelievable story Sirius was spouting out, Harry now thought that Sirius was definitely onto something.

"A fully-trained and reasonably powerful wizard from a dark sort of background. Not particularly likely to get himself killed, on the surface, though you could hardly have guessed he was the reckless sort. Luckily for you, he ended up locked away from all possible efforts to get himself killed. Able to be hidden away from view, like the rest of your Horcruxes. He was an almost perfect match, really. Imagine your delight," Sirius mocked.

"You assumed that Harry wouldn't know what happened that night. He doesn't. I never told him. I found all this out before I even thought about telling him. It seemed a bit cruel to do so after that."

Voldemort raised his wand at Sirius, but didn't fire off any spells. Sirius seemed to expect as much, because he didn't react to the threat at all.

"Are you going to kill me, _your Lordship_? No? I didn't think so."

Then he turned to Harry and started to walk towards him, albeit slowly. It would take him ages to reach Harry's side, at that rate.

"Harry, all I wanted since I met you was to keep you safe," Sirius called out as he approached. "To give you everything you wanted. And then you told me your deepest desire was just to live, and yet you were willing to sacrifice that for the wizarding world, most of whom you've never even met. You're only seventeen, and you would die for all of us. I couldn't imagine the kind of weight that's been on your shoulders. You should never have had to deal with any of it. I couldn't believe that you ever suspected that there was real darkness in you.

"Well, now what was once your responsibility is mine, and I'm willing to do the same, not for them, but for you." Sirius seemed to abruptly stop in his tracks. He stood as still as Harry himself, regarding his lover across the distance that still separated them.

"In that moment, when you left to come here, I loved you more than ever, and I would do anything to keep you alive. If that means I won't be there to see it… well, I've known for a while that that's the way it has to be. I'm sorry Harry. I'm the last Horcrux. There's nothing else for it."

It couldn't be, surely. But Sirius's words reverberated in his brain.

"Sirius!" Harry shouted, his feet suddenly racing across the ground, heedless of the fact that the Dark Lord could at any moment start casting curses at his unprotected back. He barely cared, for he knew it had to be too late, anyway. Sirius had already turned his wand on himself, and his lips were moving. And then he was falling, and Harry's heart seemed to skip a beat, because that couldn't be it. That couldn't possibly be how it ended.

Sirius wasn't moving, though, and Harry had seen the green light all too well. Somewhere in his brain, he knew what that light meant. He'd seen what it could do too many times. And when Harry did reach Sirius's side, after what seemed like hours of running toward him, the crumpled body never seeming to get closer no matter how quickly he forced one foot in front of the other, Harry wasn't certain what to do. For one mad moment, he had half a mind to cast a reviving spell, or at least to fall down beside Sirius and cry for him, though that would have left him vulnerable to attack. He thought in that moment that he might actually have wanted Voldemort to strike him down, for how could he live without Sirius? He was Harry's family. He was the only person Harry had really ever loved, at least like _that_. It was worse than if the final Horcrux had really been him, because at least then he wouldn't have had to live with this degree of pain. Could human beings, even magical ones, actually survive that much hurt?

In reality, he barely had a moment to take in the sight before a harsh cackle caused him to whirl around.

"He was always the smartest of his generation of Blacks," Voldemort all but wheezed. Harry thought he seemed gleeful and upset at once. "His brother was a treacherous fool, his cousins… Bellatrix was mad long before Azkaban, the middle child was a dim-witted, Muggle-loving housewife, and the youngest, Lucius's wife, is barely fit to even call herself a trophy wife. The two that made up the next generation were even more of a disappointment, especially since I had high expectations of the young Malfoy boy.

"But Sirius Black, oh, he would have been a prize to add to my Death Eaters. Such a pity that pureblood obstinacy I admired so much led him in a different direction. It was only the icing on the cake that he was the epitome of Gryffindor's house, when in my previous searches I had not been able to find anything belonging to Gryffindor to make into a Horcrux. I decided he must be my final Horcrux when I saw him standing there, watching as you and Rubeus Hagrid, that oath, took off. It's rather a pity he's dead, for more reasons than one. And to think, the wizarding world will never even miss him, though he was one of the greatest wizards to come out of his generation.

"But you will not finish what he started. I need no Horcruxes to live if my only adversary is _you_. You aren't even a qualified wizard. There's nothing at all special about you."

As if in a swarm of memories, Harry saw himself again and again performing feats that shouldn't have been possible all because of strong emotion, and Dumbledore's assertion that it was love that drove Voldemort out of his body when he had tried to possess him at the end of his fourth year, when the Imperius curse failed to work on him.

He thought of Sirius, then.

"You want to fucking bet?" Harry growled. He raised his wand and aimed.


	14. Epilogue

******************************************EPILOGUE**  
  
Long after the incident that came to be known officially as the Battle of Sacrifices, (though all who were actually involved scoffed at this, since 'the defeat of Lord Voldemort' worked just as well, now that there was no real need not to say his name, and was certainly far less melodramatic) there would still be debate over what exactly transpired.

Some wizards claimed that Harry Potter defeated Voldemort by using all of his emotions to create a spell of greater power than Voldemort's precautions could counter. Others supposed that Potter was somehow able to use the powers he had gained from Voldemort as a baby, powers the Dark Lord had failed to realise had been transferred, to beat the evil wizard at his own game – these people gave Harry odd looks and practically crossed to the other side of the street when he got too close. Others still said that he simply withdrew a Muggle knife and, in his rage at witnessing the murder of Sirius Black, planted it in the Dark Lord's chest, which only worked because Lord Voldemort had never contemplated the possibility of dying by Muggle means. It was hard to tell, because the body had been completely incinerated by the time any Ministry officials arrived. Everyone speculated about that, as well; whether Potter had burned his enemy as some final revenge, or perhaps just as a sort of closure, or maybe (and probably) just to make sure it was over.

At least that way, there could be none of that 'one last scare' rubbish that Muggle horror films seemed so fond of. A dead man was undeniably dead when he was little more than ashes being blown away by the wind.

Whatever the story truly was, Harry Potter himself certainly wasn't telling. When he'd been asked how he did it, he just gave them a bitter sort of smile and said that he hadn't done it; it had been Sirius Black who had defeated Lord Voldemort. The press would have none of it, of course. Harry Potter had been destined to defeat the Dark Lord, the Chosen One, and he was the only one still alive at the end of the fight. Plus, he was a far more glamorous hero than a scraggly looking convicted murderer, and so that was that as far as they were concerned.

All that anyone could say for sure was that after Harry Potter allegedly defeated the most powerful Dark Lord in centuries, he'd failed to return to Hogwarts when the new school year started. The school was, of course, remaining open despite Dumbledore's death, since there was no longer a threat of huge proportions due to which parents would fear being separated from their children.

The press had no idea where Harry Potter had gone. If pressed, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley might have said that Harry had initially returned to Godric's Hollow for a short while, though he had long since moved on, and neither of them knew to where. Hermione was very quick, though, to assert that Harry intended to return to Hogwarts the _following_ school year, after he'd had a bit of a break. Even she didn't believe the truth of her words.

For the moment though, as only Harry Potter himself knew, he was at Grimmauld Place. It had passed to him when Sirius died, since the man had apparently had the foresight to leave a will. And to take the blood inheritance ward off it, at that, since a house that Harry couldn't even get into wouldn't have been of much use. It wasn't that Harry particularly wanted to keep the place – it was really quite creepy, when it came down to it – but he was glad that the wards hadn't deprived him of one last visit to one of the only places he'd felt remotely safe, and one of the places he'd been able to spend time with Sirius. Certainly, he had learned a lot more about Sirius and even Regulus during his short return there.

He found it ironic, of course, that he should return to the Black House after Sirius's death when he'd told the man himself that not even _him_ being there would ever make Harry go back.

He would have gone anywhere on earth or beyond if it meant he could see Sirius again.

But then, Harry had made up for the irony straight after his visit by doing what Sirius would have done if he could. Harry didn't think he'd ever seen a fire quite as big as the one that burned the house of Black to the ground. It had been… well, magical.

It had been his even shorter return to Godric's Hollow that had prompted his return there. For all that he'd been nearly choked by bittersweet memories of Sirius, he'd decided that it truly couldn't hurt to indulge them just for a little while. If he didn't properly mourn while the hurting was fresh, he was worried that he might never be able to later, when and if his life had regained whatever form of balance could be called normalcy in his tumultuous world.

Then again, he wasn't sure he'd ever recover properly regardless. It was true, he found, what they said about there not really being life after war. Certainly, he could settle into _a_ life. But it wasn't really _his_ life. His relationships all felt different. As he'd begun to realise after Dumbledore's death, even Ron and Hermione seemed so much younger than him. How could they possibly understand him when they hadn't had to repeatedly pour poison down a man's throat as he begged them to just kill him, hadn't had to murder someone just to stay alive, hadn't had their first real lover kill himself for them in front of their very eyes. Those differences seemed to put years between them. Harry wished it wasn't true, but there was nothing to be done for it. He'd wondered how much more pronounced it would be if he finished out his schooling the following year, as Hermione insisted to all who had listen that he would.

He found that he at least actually still got along quite well with Remus Lupin, even though neither the Order nor Sirius stood as a bridge between them any longer. He thought that that helped, at least a little. Remus knew what emotional anguish and suffering was, and he knew how it felt to miss Sirius like a constant physical ache. Most importantly, he knew not to press Harry to talk about it or to move on.

The owl post that found Harry as he travelled about, seeing those places of the world that were mostly untouched by Voldemort's corruption, became face-to-face encounters once Harry returned to Britain. He enjoyed chatting away about inane things to a man that he knew already understood the more complex things about him. And Remus also seemed to be the only person who actually had any clue what Sirius had meant to Harry. He had suspected that something was happening back before Harry had even really considered it, and it had been confirmed to him the moment he'd seen Harry once again after Sirius's death. It was the look in his eyes, he told Harry. It was different from how one would look after they lost a friend, or a parental figure. Harry tried not to remind himself just how Remus might have grown familiar with such a look.

As it was, Harry himself saw it far too often in the mirror. He'd encountered it for the first time, not on the battlefield when Sirius had died, and not when actually looking at himself, but reflected in the script of a man who hadn't yet lost the person he loved, but rather knew that he was going to have to leave that person behind.

For that was what Harry had found at Godric's Hollow, and what had inspired him to take the time first to remember Sirius, and then to remember that there was a world outside Voldemort's influence. One letter, quickly scribbled sometime before Sirius had trailed after him on that last venture out to face Voldemort, had been left waiting for him on a bench. It said all that he and Sirius could not have said to each other in the heat of the moment, because they'd really been just too stubborn for either one of them to just _say it_ already. It read:

_So here we go. The only godfatherly advice I'll ever give you. Follow it for me, will you? I'd hate it to go to waste. Well, you have your life ahead of you. You once told me that all you ever really wanted was to not have to die. Don't stress about the future. Don't mourn me, or focus on the past. Do something that really matters with your life, because otherwise you might as well have died with me. Live in the moment, and love as I loved you, as if I never hurt you like I'm sure I have. I don't know if you loved me quite like that, though you told me that you loved me, and it doesn't matter. Either way, you gave me something worth dying for, which is something self-important evil prick like Voldemort could ever take away. That's all I ever really wanted.  
All my love,  
Sirius_

It may not have been the romance of the century, at least to anyone else's eyes, but Harry had certainly cried over its loss when he read the note, as well as several times since then.

Merlin, he still had no idea what he was going to tell Ginny, who expected them to pick up where they had left off now that the main threat was gone and most of the Death Eaters had been captured. That relationship seemed _decades_ ago. Harry was stunned to think that he'd left her about a year ago, though they'd never officially broken up. It had been a year since Dumbledore died.

How time flies when you're fighting for your life.

It was three months after the defeat of Voldemort – after Sirius had died – when Harry had decided what he wanted to do with his life. He had, of course, taken Sirius's parting words to heart. One of the things that mattered in the world, and mattered most to him, was werewolves, with Remus having to deal with turning into one once a month. Snape, whom he had finally managed to be civil to, had scoffed at him, claiming that one couldn't work with werewolves unless they actually had potions knowledge, and that relying on the stolen notes in a book – Snape's book, it turned out, and didn't _that_ idea burn a little – would not be sufficient out in the real world. He, and everyone else, was surprised when Harry, instead of looking for a cure as they'd thought he would, campaigned for werewolf rights and set up networks of all kinds. He was, after all, not a genius in any field. He had no chance of finding a cure where all others had failed. He wasn't stupid. He was, however, famous. Nothing worked like fame and adoration to influence the political world.

And if he spent the next several years ignoring the ever-growing closeness between himself and Remus, well, that wasn't stupidity, that was just him remembering that Remus was twice his age. It wasn't that he didn't want to heed Sirius's advice about love. It was just… well, really, one could only have one grand romance that defied all rules, boundaries and common sense in one lifetime.

And, of course, if by the time Harry was nearly thirty the age gap started looking a lot smaller, that was hardly an excuse to suddenly jump into bed with the man who had been his best friend since he still was a teenager.

It _wasn't_.

Then again, who did he really think he was kidding?

~FIN~

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Author's Notes: Mostly this was written because back in late 2006 I had to write a Harry Potter fic for a particular fairytale prompt (Prince Ivan and the Grey Wolf), which anyone who's read it will know is basically the perfect setting for a Horcrux hunting fic with Sirius in it. Even though I swore I'd never write a Horcrux-hunting fic at all, how could I not go there? But, actually, I was astonished at how easy it was to make the story AU enough to fit that fairytale. The only point at which this purposely goes AU from canon is Voldemort making Sirius a Horcrux instead of Harry. Everything else (including Sirius having just enough of Voldemort in him to actually kill Peter before Peter could get away, and the many, MANY consequences of that) actually just logically flowed from there. Weird.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this, and that it was hopefully just different enough from other Horcrux-hunting fics that I don't have to hide my face after caving and writing one. ;)


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